Oi  I  i". 


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BR  85  .C66  1884 

Cook,  Joseph,  1838-1901 

Occident 


BOSTON  Monday  Lectures. 

BY      JOSEPH      COOK. 


BIOLOGY.    With  Preludes  on  Current  Events.     Three  Colored  Illustrations. 

12ino.    Sixteenth  thousand $1.50 

TRANSCENDENTALISM.    With  Preludes  on  Current  Events.     12mo.      Tenth 

tliousanu 1.50 

ORTHODOXY.    With  Preludes  on  Current  Events.    Seventh  Thousand  .        .  1.50 

CONSCIENCE.    With  Preludes  on  Current  Events.      Fifth  Thousand      .        .  1.50 

HEREDITY.    With  Preludes  on  Current  Events 1.50 

MARRIAGE.     With  Preludes  on  Current  Events 1.50 

LABOR.    With  Preludes  on  Current  Events 1.50 

SOCIALISM.     With  Preludes  on  Current  Events 1.50 

OCCIDENT.    With  Preludes  on  Current  Events.    (A  new  volume)      ....  1..50 

ORIENT.    With  Preludes  on  Current  Events.    (In  I'ress) 1.50 


"I  do  not  know  of  any  work  on  Conscience  in  which  the  true  theory  of  ethics  is  so 
clearly  and  forcibly  presented,  together  with  the  logical  inferences  from  it  in  support  of  the 
great  trutlis  of  religion.  The  review  of  the  whimsical  and  shiiUow  speculations  of  Matthew 
Arnold  is  especially  able  and  satislactorj."  —  Professor  Francis  Boicen,  harvard  Univer- 
silt/. 

"These  Lectures  are  crowded  so  full  of  knowledge,  of  thought,  of  argument,  illumined 
with  such  passages  of  eloquence  and  i)ower,  spiced  so  fnquently  with  deep-cutting  though 
good-natured  irony,  that  1  could  make  no  abstract  from  them  without  utterly  mutilating 
tlieni."—  Rn:  Dr^T/iomas  Hill,  ex- 1' resident  of  Harvai  d  Uiiiveraiti/,  in  C/iristiait  Register. 

"Joseph  Cook  is  a  phenomenon  to  be  accounted  for.  No  other  American  orator  lias 
done  wliat  he  has  done,  or  anv  thing  like  it ;  and,  prior  to  the  experiment,  no  voice  would 
have  been  bold  enough  to  predict  its  success."  — Jiev.  Professor  A.  P.  Peabody  of  Harvard 
Unirersiti/. 

"  Mr.  Cook  is  a  specialist.  His  work,  as  it  now  stands,  represents  fairly  the  very  latest 
and  best  rescarclies." —  George  M.  Beard,  M.D.,  of  Kew  Fow. 

"By  far  the  most  satisfactory  of  recent  discussions  in  this  field,  both  in  method  and 
execution."— /^(•o/e.s.'sor /iorr/e/i  P.  Bow  tie  of  Boston  Universitij. 

"  Mr.  Cook  is  a  great  master  of  analysis.  He  shows  singular  justness  of  view  in  his 
manner  of  treating  the  most  difficult  and  perplexing  themes." —  Princeton  Reriew. 

"The  I>ectuics  are  remarkably  eloquent,  vigorous,  and  powerful."  — /i.  Payne  Smith, 
Dean  of  Oniteihtirt/. 

"They  are  wonderful  specimens  of  shrewd,  clear,  and  vigorous  tliinking." — Rev.  Dr. 
Anffus.  the  College,  Regmt'.i  Park. 

"These  are  very  wonderful  Lectures."  —  Rev.  C.  H.  Spvrgeon. 

"Traversin";  a  very  wide  field,  cutting  right  across  the  territories  of  rival  specialists,  the 
work  on  Biology  contains  not  one  important  scientitic  misstatement,  eitlier  of  fact  or 
theory." —  Bihliotheca  Sacra. 

"  Vigorous  and  suggestive.  Interesting  from  the  glimpses  they  give  of  the  present  phases 
of  speculation  in  wliat  is  emphatically  tlie  most  thoughtful  connnunity  in  the  United 
States."  —  London  Spectator. 

"  I  admired  the  rhetorical  power  with  which,  before  a  large  mixed  audience,  the  speaker 
knew  how  to  handle  the  difficult  topic  of  biology,  and  to  cause  the  teaching  of  German 
philosophers  and  theologians  to  be  respected."  —  Pro/essor  Schoberlein,  of  Guttingen  Uni- 
vemity. 

"His  object  is  the  foundation  of  a  new  and  true  metaphysics  resting  on  a  biological  basis, 
that  is  the  proof  of  the  truth  of  philosophical  theism,  and  of  the  fundamental  ideas  of 
Christianity.  These  intentions  lie  carries  out  with  a  full,  and  occasionally  with  a  too  full, 
application  of  liis  eminent  oratorical  talent,  and  with  great  sagacity  and  thorough 
knowledge  of  the  leading  works  in  physiology  for  the  last  thirty  years."  —  P;o/essor  Vlrici, 
University  of  Halle,  Germany. 


HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  &  CO.,  Publishers. 


Boston  Monda  y  Lectures. 


OCCIDENT, 


WITH  PRELUDES  ON  CURRENT  EVENTS. 


By  JOSEPH   COOK. 


The  sky  is  roof  of  but  one  family. 
I  will  be  citizen  of  the  whole  earth. 

The  Rhine  from  the  Odenwald. 


BOSTON: 
HOUGHTON,   MIFFLIN  AND   COMPANY. 

New  York:    11    East   Seventeenth    Street. 

1884. 


Copyright,  1884, 
By  JOSEPH   COOK. 

A II  rights  reserved. 


The  Riverside  Press,  Cambridge : 
Elcctrotyped  and  Printed  by  H.  O.  Houghton  and  Company. 


To 
THE  MANY  SCORES  OF  FRIENDS 

IN 

ENGLAND,  SCOTLAND,  GERMANY,  INDIA,  CHINA, 
JAPAN,  AND  AUSTRALIA, 

WHOSE  KINDNESS  TO  ME  AND  MINE,  ON  A  TOUR  OF  THE  WORLD, 

HAS  ENCIRCLED  THE   EARTH  FOR  US   WITH 

A  CHAIN   OF   MEMORIES, 

EVERY   LINK  IN  WHICH   IS  GOLDEN, 

EIjis  ISaok 

IS  RESPECTFULLY,   GRATEFULLY,    AND   AFFECTIONATELY 

DEDICATED, 

IN  ASPIRATION  FOR  THE  SUCCESS  OF 

INTERXATIONAL  REFORM, 

AND   THE    GROWTH   OF    THE    SPIRIT   OF   A 

COSMOPOLITAN  CITIZENSHIP. 


The  wind  blows  east,  the  wind  blows  west ; 
The  world,  they  say,  is  worst  to  the  best. 

Thomas  Carlyle. 

Afloating,  afloating 

Across  the  sleeping  sea; 

All  night  I  heard  a  singing-bird, 

Upon  the  top-mast  tree. 

"Oh  came  you  from  the  isles  of  Greece 
Or  from  the  banks  of  Seine ; 
Or  off  some  tree  in  forests  free 
Which  fringe  the  Western  main  ?  " 

"I  came  not  off  the  Old  World, 
Nor  yet  from  off  the  New ; 
But  I  am  one  of  the  birds  of  God 
Which  sing  the  whole  night  through." 

"  Oh  sing  and  wake  the  dawning. 
Oh  whistle  for  the  wind ; 
The  night  is  long,  the  current  strong, 
My  boat  it  lags  behind." 

"The  current  sweeps  the  Old  World; 
The  current  sweeps  the  New; 
The  wind  will  blow,  the  dawn  will  glow 
Ere  thou  hast  sailed  them  through." 

Charles  Kingsley. 


INTRODUCTION. 


The  object  of  the  Boston  Monday  Lectures  is  to  present 
the  results  of  the  freshest  German,  English,  and  American 
scholarship  on  the  more  important  and  difficult  topics  con- 
cern in  cr  the  relations  of  Reliction  and  Science. 

They  were  begun  in  the  Meionaon  in  1875.  The  au- 
diences gathered  at  noon  on  .Mondays  were  of  such  size 
as  to  need  to  be  transferred  to  Park  Street  Church  in  Octo- 
ber, 1876,  and  thence  to  Tremont  Temple,  which  was  often 
more  than  full  during  the  winter  of  1876-77  and  in  that  of 
1877-78.  The  very  capacious  auditorium  of  Tremont  Tem- 
ple was  destroyed  by  fire  in  August,  1879  ;  and  in  Novem- 
ber of  that  year  the  lectures  were  transferred  to  the  Old 
South  Meeting-House,  the  most  interesting  of  the  historic 
edifices  of  New  England. 

The  audiences  have  always  contained  large  numbers  of 
ministers,  teachers,  and  other  educated  men. 

The  thirty-five  lectures  given  in  1876-77  were  reported 
in  the  Boston  Daily  '"Advertiser,"  by  Mr.  J.  E.  Bacon, 
stenographer,  and  most  of  them  were  I'epublished  in  full  in 
New  York  and  London.  They  are  contained  in  the  first, 
second,  and  third  volumes  of  Boston  Monday  Lectures, 
entitled  "  Biology,"  "  Transcendentalism,"  and  "  Ortho- 
doxy." 

The  thirty  lectures  given  in  1877-78  were  reported  by 
Mr.  Bacon  for  the  "  Advertiser,"  and  republished  in  full  in 


Vlll  INTRODUCTION. 

New  York  and  London.  They  are  contained  in  the  fourth, 
fifth,  and  sixth  volumes  of  Boston  Monday  Lectures,  en- 
titled "  Conscience,"  "  Heredity,"  and  "  Marriage." 

The  twenty  lectures  given  in  1878-79  were  reported  by 
Mr.  Bacon  for  the  "Advertiser,"  and  republished  in  full 
in  New  York  and  London.  They  are  contained  in  the  sev- 
enth and  eighth  volumes  of  Boston  Monday  Lectures,  en- 
titled "  Labor  *'  and  "  Socialism." 

In  1880,  1881,  and  1882,  Mr.  Cook  made  a  tour  of  the 
world,  as  traveler  and  lecturer. 

During  his  absence  there  was  given  in  Tremont  Temple, 
in  the  Boston  Monday  Lectureship,  a  course  of  ten  lectures, 
which  are  now  included  in  the  volume  entitled  "  Christ  and 
Modern  Thought."     The  lecturers  were  :  — 

President  James  McCosh,  D.  D.,  LL.  D.,  of  Princeton 
College. 

Ex-President  Mark  Hopkins,  D.  D.,  LL.  D.,  of  Wil- 
liams College. 

President  E.  G.  Robinson,  D.  D.,  LL.  D.,  of  Brown 
University. 

Rev.  S.  W.  Dike. 

Rev.  Thomas   Guard,  D.  D. 

Rt.  Rev.  Thomas  M.  Clark,  D.  D.,  LL.  D. 

Prof.  George  R.  Crooks,  D.  D.,  LL.  D.,  of  Drew 
Theological  Seminary. 

Rev.  G.  B.  Thomas,  D.  D. 

Rev.  John  Cotton  Smith,  D.  D. 

Chancellor  Howard  Crosby,  D.  D.,  LL.  D. 

In  the  volume  made  up  of  the  lectures  of  these  gentle- 
men, there  was  published  a  preliminary  lecture  on  "  The 
Methods  of  Meeting  Modern  Unbelief,"  given  by  Mr.  Cook 
in  London.  In  the  English  edition  there  was  included 
Wendell  Phillips'  Reply  to  Chancellor  Crosby's  View  of  the 
Temperance  Question. 


INTRODUCTION,  IX 

After  returning  from  his  tour  of  the  world,  Mr.  Cook 
gave  in  the  Boston  Monday  Lectureship,  in  Tremont  Tem- 
ple, the  twelve  lectures  which  are  included  in  the  ninth  and 
tenth  volumes  of  the  Boston  Monday  Lectures,  entitled 
"  Occident  "  and  "  Orient."  They  were  reported  steno- 
graphically  by  Mr.  Bacon,  and  republished  in  full  in  New 
York,  Chicago,  London,  and  other  cities. 

The  following  is  the  Report  of  the  Boston  Monday 
Lectureship  for  1883  :  — 

1.  The  published  reports  of  the  Boston  Monday  Lectures 
are  now  estimated  to  reach  in  America,  England,  Scotland, 
India,  and  Australia  more  than  a  million  readers  weekly. 

2.  The  audiences  in  Boston  for  the  season  of  1883  —  the 
seventh  of  the  Lectureship  —  have  been  of  unprecedented 
quantity  and  quality,  often  exceeding  the  seating  capacity 
of  Tremont  Temple. 

3.  The  Monday  Lectures  given  in  past  years  now  make 
eight  volumes  in  their  American  form,  and  of  these  several 
have  reached  a  fifteenth  or  sixteenth  edition.  There  are  in 
England  thirteen  different  forms  of  these  volumes  as  repub- 
lished in  London.  It  is  affirmed  by  their  numerous  publish- 
ers that  no  volumes  on  similar  themes  have  ever  been  circu- 
lated more  widely  than  these  through  England,  Scotland, 
India,  and  Australia. 

4.  During  Mr.  Cook's  recent  absence  from  Boston,  he 
made  a  tour  of  the  world,  the  journey  extending  through 
two  years  and  seventy-seven  days.  He  lectured  oftener,  on 
the  average,  than  every  other  working-day,  while  on  the 
land.  In  all  the  great  cities  visited  there  were  immense 
audiences.  The  principal  subjects  of  the  lectures  were  the 
chief  questions  now  in  discussion  between  Christianity  on 
the  one  hand,  and  philosophy  and  physical  science  on  the 
other.  It  is  believed  that  topics  equally  difficult  and  seri- 
ous were  never  before  carried  through  a  tour  of  similar  ex- 
tent and  success. 


X  INTRODUCTION. 

There  were  135  public  appearances  in  the  United  King- 
dom, 42  in  India  and  Ceylon,  5  in  China,  12  in  Japan,  and 
50  in  Australia. 

5.  Among  the  distinguished  gentlemen  who  have  given 
written  permission  for  the  use  of  their  names  on  the  Honor- 
ary Committee  of  the  Boston  Monday  Lectureship,  are  :  — 

Rev.  James  McCosh,  D.  D.,  President  of  Princeton 
College  ;  Rev.  R.  S.  Storks,  D.  D.,  Brooklyn,  N.  Y. ;  Rev. 
RoswELL  D.  Hitchcock,  D.  D.,  New  York  city  ;  Rev. 
William  M.  Taylor,  D.  D.,  New  York  city ;  Prof.  Ed- 
wards A.  Park,  D.  D.,  Andover,  Mass. ;  Prof.  J.  P.  Gul- 
liver, Andover,  Mass. ;  Bishop  F.  D.  Huntington,  Syra- 
cuse, N.  Y. ;  Rev.  T.  M.  Post,  D.  D.,  St.  Louis  ;  Prof.  S. 
L  Curtiss,  Chicago  Theological  Seminary  ;  President 
George  F.  Magoun,  Iowa  College  ;  Bishop  Benjamin  N. 
Paddock  ;  Hon.  A.  H.  Rice,  Ex-Governor  of  Massachu- 
setts ;  Hon  William  Claflin,  Ex-Governor  of  Massachu- 
setts ;  Rev.  William  M.  Baker,  D.  D.,  Boston  ;  Prof. 
Borden  P.  Bowne,  Boston  University  ;  Samuel  John- 
son, Boston  ;  Wendell  Phillips,  Boston  ;  Rev.  N.  G. 
Clark,  D.  D.,  Boston ;  Rev.  Otis  Gibson,  San  Francisco  ; 
Gen.  John  Eaton,  Department  of  the  Interior,  Washing- 
ton, D.  C. 

6.  Devoutly  grateful  to  Providence  for  the  opportuni- 
ties of  usefulness  open  before  the  Boston  Monday  Lecture- 
ship, the  Committee  in  charge  of  it  recommends  :  — 

(1.)  The  formation  of  a  Boston  Monday  Lectureship  As- 
sociation on  the  following  plan  :  — 

Membership  of  the  association  shall  be  open  to  those  who 
subscribe  $1  annually  to  its  support.  Each  dollar  sub- 
scribed shall  entitle  the  subscriber  to  one  seat  in  the  annual 
course  of  lectures,  and  to  one  vote  in  the  annual  election  of 
oflficers.  Every  five  dollars  subscribed  by  a  single  individ- 
ual shall  give  the  right  of  selecting  reserved  seats  in  the 
order  of  the  subscriptions. 


INTRODUCTION.  xi 

The  general  public  is  to  be  admitted  to  any  empty  spaces 
left  in  the  seats  ;  and,  if  necessary,  contributions  may  be 
taken. 

(2.)  The  continuance  of  the  lectures  under  the  same  gen- 
eral plan  as  in  the  past. 

-  (3.)  The  raising  of  at  least   $2,500  for  each  season   to 
cover  expenses. 

Signed  (for  the  Committee). 

A.  J.  Gordon,  President. 

M.  R.  Deming,  Secretary  and  Treasurer. 

G.  A.  FoxCROFT,  Business  Manager, 

In  the  following  volume,  which  gives  only  a  subordinate 
place  to  merely  personal  experiences  in  travel,  some  of  the 
salient  points  are  :  — 

1.  A  plan  of  Study  during  a  Tour  of  the  World. 

2.  An  estimate  of  the  Present  Forces  of  Agnosticism  and 
Materialism  and  of  Christian  Theism  in  England. 

3.  A  study  of  the  New  Criticism  of  the  Old  Testament, 
with  a  notice  of  the  views  of  Professor  Delitzsch  on  that 
topic. 

4.  An  examination  of  the  Position  of  the  German  State 
Church  and  of  the  German  Universities,  especially  with  ref- 
erence to  the  downfall  of  the  Mythical  Theory  and  the  De- 
cline of  Rationalism. 

5.  A  review  of  recent  German  discussions  for  and  against 
the  claims  of  Spiritualism. 

6.  A  lecture  in  London  on  the  Relations  of  the  Temper- 
ance Reform  to  Civil  Liberty,  notices  of  the  contrasts  be- 
tween American  and  Foreign  Temperance  Creeds. 

7.  A  study  of  Christian  Missions  in  their  world-wide 
Relations  to  Current  Events. 

8.  A  defence  of  the  pi-inciples  of  Civil  Service  Reform. 

9.  A  reply  to  the  defenders  of  the  theory  of  Probation 
after  Death. 


Xll  INTRODUCTION. 

10.  A  study  of  Advanced  Thought  in  Italy  and  Greece, 
with  a  lecture  on  a  Night  on  the  Acropolis ;  or,  Art  and 
History  at  Athens. 

As  the  matter  in  the  Preludes  refers  to  current  reform, 
the  expressions  of  the  audiences,  whether  favorable  or  un- 
favorable, are  retained  as  recorded  by  the  stenographer ; 
but  these  have  been  omitted  in  the  Lectures,  as  the  latter 
have  been  considerably  revised  and  enlarged  since  delivery. 


CONTEK'TS. 


LECTURE   I. 

ADVANCED  THOUGHT  IN  ENGLAND. 

PAGE 

No  Foreign  Lauds  in  our  Day       .         .         .        .         .         .         .21 

The  Unity  of  Modern  Nations 21 

A  Cosmopolitan  Faith 22 

Leaving  New  York  Harbor 2-4 

Slinor  Beauties  of  the  Ocean 25 

Midnight  at  the  Centre  of  the  Atlantic 26 

The  Lost  Atlantis 27 

Plato  and  the  Atlantidean  Theory 29 

Lectures  in  Kngland  ami  Scotland         .         .         .         .         .         .31 

Lectnres  in  Ireland  and  Wales 31 

Methods  of  Study  in  Travel 32 

Fifty  Questions  concerning  Each  Nation 33 

British  Advanced  Thought 34 

Agnosticism  in  England 36,  39 

Herbert  Spencer's  Critics        ........     37 

The  Cockney  Materialistic  School 37 

Lionel  Beale  and  Clerk  Maxwell 38,  40 

Carlyle's  Natural  Supernaturalism 39,  42 

Christian  Theism 41 

English  and  Scottish  Preaching  .         .         .         .         .         .  45,  47 

Mrs.  Browning  and  Tennyson 48 


LECTURE  IL 

ADVANCED    THOUGHT    IN    GERMANY. 

Leading  Minds  in  German  Universities 72 

Torpor  of  German  State  Churches 73 

Prospects  of  Separation  of  Church  and  State        .        .        .       74,77 


XIV 


CONTENTS. 


Dowufall  of  Strauss'  Mytliical  Theory 
Concessions  of  Baur,  Strauss,  and  Kenan 
St.  Paul's  Four  Undisputed  Epistles 
New  Triumphs  of  Christian  Scholarship 
Leibnitz,  Kant,  and  Lotze 


78 
78 
79 
84 

84 


LECTURE  IIL 

DELITZSCH   ON    THE    NEW    CRITICISM    OF   THE    OLD    TESTAMENT. 

Three  Schools  of  Old  Testament  Criticism 99 

AVellhausen's  and  Kuenen's  Opponents 99 

Eight  Theses  by  Professor  Delitzsch 102 

Four  Authors  of  the  Pentateuch 106 

Failures  of  A nti-Supernaturalistic  Criticism  .         .         .         .111 

Progress  of  Assy riology  and  Egyptology  .         .         .         .114 

LECTURE   IV. 


PROFESSOR   ZOLLNER  S    VIEWS   ON  SPIRITUALISM 

Zollner  a  Biblical  Demonologist    . 

Partisan  Opposition  to  Zollner  at  Leipzig 

Personal  Traits  of  Zollner     . 

GtTMian  Works  on  Spiritualism 

Zolhier  on  American  Spiritualism 

His  Belief  in  tlie  Agency  of  Evil  Spirits   , 

His  Celebrated  Experiments 

His  Views  as  to  the  Christian  Miracles 

Summary  of  his  New  Philosophy  . 

Final  Interview  with  Zollner 


131 
132 
133 
134 
135 
141 
141 
143 
143 
145 


LECTUHE   V. 

OPPONENTS   OF    PROFESSOR   ZOLLVER's   VIEWS   ON    SPIRITUALISM. 

Untrustwnrthiness  of  So-Called  Spiritistic  Communications  .  162 

The  Atithor  an  Anti- Spiritualist 163 

The  Bililicnl  Doctrine  as  to  Evil  Spirits 163 

Evasion  of  this  Topic  Unscientific 164 

Professor  Wundt  as  Zollner's  Opponent        .....  164 

German  Literature  against  Spiritualism 164 

Bellachini,  the  Court  Conjurer 165 


CONTENTS. 


XV 


Slate-Writing  probably  a  Trick 
Dr.  Beard's  ExiDosures  of  Spiritistic  Frauds 
Ulrici  on  Professor  ZoUner's  Experiments 
Importance  of  Transcendental  Pliysics 
Scientific  Views  as  to  the  Supernatural     . 
Parting  from  Germany  .         .         .         . 

Summit  of  the  St.  Gothard  Pass 


166 
168 
169 
170 
170 
172 
172 


LECTURE   VI. 


ADVANCED  THOUGHT  IN  ITALY  AND  GREECE. 

Caesar's  Work,  and  Peter's,  and  Paul's 
Reformed  Catholicism 
Count  Campello     . 
Temporal  Power  of  the  Pope 
Duties  of  Protestantism  in  Italy 
Ancient  Portrait  Busts 
Julius  Caesar 
Augustus  Caesar 
Caligula  and  Claudius  . 
Nero,  Titus,  Ti-ajan,  Hadrian 
Socrates,  iEscliines,  Enripides 
Homer,  Scipio  Africanus,  Aristotle 
The  Demosthenes  of  the  Vatican 
The  Julius  Csesar  of  the  Capitoline 
Pericles  and  Aspasia 
The  University  of  Modern  Athens 

Delphi 

A  Night  on  Mount  Parnassus  . 


.  192 

193 
.  195 

196 
.  197 

199 
.  200 

200 
.  200 

201 
.  202 

203 
.  203 

206 
.  209 

212 
.  212 

214 


PRELUDE  I. 

NEW  DEPARTURES  IN  AND  FROM  ORTHODOXY. 

The  Siren  School  in  Theology 3 

Self  Evident  Truths  in  Religion 4 

Axiomatic  Theology      .........  4 

Essentials  in  a  Cosmopolitan  Faith 4 

Professor  Dorner  on  Probation  after  Death          ....  7 

The  Essential  Christ 7 

Holy  Faith  and  Saving  Faith 9 

A  Perfect  Theodicy 11 


XVI  CONTENTS. 

Probation  in  the  Intermediate  State 12 

Objections  to  Dorner's  Eschatology 14 

German  and  American  Churches 16 

Necessity  of  the  Atonement 17 


PRELUDE  II. 

DOES    DEATH   END    PROBATION  ? 

Shakespeare  and  the  Bhagvat  Geeta     . 

Evil  Steadfastness  of  Character 

Self-Propagating  Power  of  Habit 

Death  as  a  Profound  Spiritual  Experience 

Experiences  in  Sudden  Deaths 

Moral  Obduracy  in  Death 

Natural  Effect  of  Final  Impenitence     . 

Anglican  Orthodoxy  .... 

Canon  Farrar's  Position 

Preacliing  to  Spirits  in  Prison  . 

The  Great  Gulf  fixed     .... 

Professor  Park  on  Probation  after  Death 


51 
52 
54 
55 
56 
57 
57 
62 
63 
64 
67 
69 


PRELUDE   HI. 

THE    FUTURE    OF    CIVIL    SERVICE   REFORM. 

Aristocratic  Critics  of  the  United  States 89 

Municipal  Reform  at  Home  and  Abroad 90 

What  is  the  Spoils  System  ? 91 

Aaron  Burr  as  its  Author 92 

The  New  Civil  Service  Law 93 

Its  Friends  and  Opponents 93 

Loopholes  in  the  New  Enactment 94 

Unattained  Objects  to  be  sought 96 


PRELUDE  IV. 

THE    VANGUARDS    OF   CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

Penurious  Expenditures  for  Missions 119 

Reasons  for  Great  Ex])enditnres 120 

Srlf -Support  by  Native  Churches 122 

Deal  Standard  of  Expenditure 126 

Imjjorted  Unbelief  in  Pagan  Lauds 128 

One  Missionary  for  every  50,000  of  Pagan  Population  .        .  129 


CONTEN'Se. 


xvu 


PRELUDE   V. 


AMERICAN   AND   FOREIGN    TEMPERANCE   CREEDS. 

Life  Assurance  Societies  and  Temperance 
Long  Lives  of  Total  Abstainers     . 
The  Two  Wings  of  the  Temperance  Reform 
Importance  of  Using  both      .... 
The  Annual  Liquor  Bill  of  the  United  States 
Mr.  Gladstone  on  Intemperance    . 
Constitutional  Prohibition 
"Wine-Diinking  in  Luxurious  Circles     . 
The  Church  of  England  Temperance  Society 
Clerical  Example  of  Total  Abstinence  . 


149 
.  149 

153 
.   153 

155 
.  156 

157 
.  159 

159 
.  160 


PRELUDE   VL 

PROBATION   AT   DEATH. 

Repetition  of  Evil  Choices 177 

Natural  Effect  of  such  Repetition 178 

Death  Foreseen  at  a  Distance 179 

Spiritual  Seriousness  in  Death 183 

Resisting  Light  received  at  Death 184 

Natural  Effect  of  such  Resistance 189 


APPENDIX. 

I.  The  Decline  of  Rationalism  in  the  German  Universities   .       219 

II.  Theodore  Christlieb  and  German  Church  Life     .         .         .  269 

III.  The  New  House  and  its  Battlement ;  or,  The  Relations  of 

the  Temperance  Reform  to  Civil  Liberty.     A  Lecture  in 
the  Metropolitan  Tabernacle,  London    ....       277 

IV,  Reply  to  Professor  Smyth,  of  Andovcr  .         .         .         ..303 
V.   A  Night  on  the  Acropolis  ;  or,  Art  and  History  at  Athens        349 


ADVANCED  THOUGHT  IN  ENGLAND  AND 
SCOTLAND, 

WITH  A  PRELUDE   ON 

L^EW  DEPARTURES  IN  AND  FROM  ORTHODOXY. 

THE    ONE    HUNDRED    AND    FIFTY-FIRST    LECTURE    IN    THE 

BOSTON    MONDAY    LECTURESHIP,    DELIVERED    IN 

TREMONT    TEMPLE,   JANUARY    8,  1883. 


"  The  decisive  fact  is  this  :  The  God-Man,  who  came  for  the  pur- 
pose of  seeking  aud  saving  the  lost,  has  taught  more  imperatively  than 
any  other  one  that  men  Mho  are  lost  when  they  die  are  lost  forever." 
—  Professor  Park,  Discourse  at  North  Andover,  1880,  p.  30. 

"  Those  of  the  early  fathers  who  held  the  doctrine  of  an  intermedi- 
ate place  made  no  practical  distinction  between  the  condition  of  the 
soul  previous  to  the  resurrection  aud  its  condition  after  it.  The 
wicked  were  miserable  and  the  good  were  happy  —  and  that  eter- 
nally." —  Professor  Shedd,  History  of  Christian  Doctrine,  vol.  ii.  p. 
410. 


"  Once  a  mighty,  warlike  power,  rushing  from  the  Atlantic  sea, 
spread  itself  with  hostile  fury  over  all  Europe  and  Asia.  That  sea, 
indeed,  was  then  navigable,  and  had  an  island  fronting  that  mouth 
which  you  in  your  tongue  call  the  Pillars  of  Hercules ;  and  this  island 
was  larger  than  Libya  and  Asia  put  together,  aud  there  was  a  passage 
hence  for  travellers  of  that  day  to  the  rest  of  the  islands,  as  well  as 
from  those  islands  to  the  whole  opposite  Continent.  ...  In  this  At- 
lantic island  was  formed  a  powerful  league  of  kings,  Avho  subdued  the 
entire  island,  together  with  many  others,  and  parts  also  of  the  Conti- 
nent, besides  which  they  subjected  also  to  their  rule  the  inland  -parts 
of  Libya  as  far  as  Egypt,  and  Europe,  also,  as  far  as  Tyrrhenia.  .  .  . 
Subsequently,  however,  through  violent  earthquakes  and  deluges, 
which  brought  desolation  in  a  single  day  and  night,  .  .  .  the  Atlantic 
island  was  plunged  beneath  the  sea  and  entirely  disappeared  ;  whence 
even  now,  that  sea  is  neither  navigable  nor  to  be  traced  out." —  The 
Timceus,  Plato,  vol.  ii.  jjp.  328,  329.     Bolm's  edition. 

"  I  spoke  as  I  saw, 
I  report,  as  a  man  may  of  God's  work.     All 's  Love,  yet  all 's  Law. 
Now  I  lay  down  the  judgeship  He  lent  me.     Each  faculty  tasked, 
To  perceive  Him,  has  gained  an  abyss  where  a  dewdrop  was  asked." 

Robert  Browning. 


OCCIDENT 


PRELUDE   I. 

NEW  DEPARTURES  IN  AND  FROM  ORTHODOXY. 

Give  me  no  guess  for  a  dying  pillow.  Let  my 
tongue  cleave  to  the  roof  of  my  mouth  and  my  right 
arm  drop  from  its  socket  rather  than  that  either 
should  be  employed  in  putting  under  the  head  of 
any  man,  woman,  or  child,  as  a  support  in  death,  a 
mere  conjecture,  however  plausible,  which  may  nev- 
ertheless prove  to  be  false.  The  hypothesis  of  pro- 
bation after  death  is  such  a  treacherous  conjecture. 
It  belongs  to  the  Siren  school  of  philosophy  and  the- 
ology. So  to  teach  it  as  to  cause  men  to  depend 
upon  it  is  to  do  a  mischief  possibly  more  horrible 
than  to  spread  pestilence,  firebrands,  and  death.  In 
God's  name  and  presence,  let  us  purify  ourselves 
from  complicity  with  such  venturesomeness  as  may 
end  in  the  ruin  of  souls.  For  one,  I  have  made  up 
my  mind  that  I  will  not  go  hence  trusting  my  own 
chances  of  eternal  peace  to  the  opportunity  of  re- 
pentance after  death.  What  I  will  not  do  for  my- 
self I  will  not,  directly  or  indirectly,  recommend 
others  to  do. 


4  OCCIDENT. 

God's  opinions  ought  to  be  ours.  What  are  the 
opinions  of  Him  who  is  the  same  yesterday,  to-day, 
and  forever  as  to  new  departures  in  regard  to  truths 
fundamental  in  rehgion  ?  There  are  a  few  self-evi- 
dent religious  truths,  as  unchangeable  as  the  very 
nature  of  things.  They  are  certainties,  not  proba- 
bilities, not  guesses.  Self-evident  axiomatic  truili 
has  no  variableness  nor  shadow  of  turning.  It  re- 
veals God's  opinions.     It  is  He. 

It  is  a  self-evident  axiomatic  truth  that  every  man 
must  be  delivered  from  the  love  of  sin  and  the  guilt 
of  it  in  order  to  obtain  harmonization  with  his  en- 
vironment by  the  infinite  holiness  of  the  moral  law. 
Call  hither  Keshub  Chunder  Sen  from  the  bank  of 
the  Ganges,  Fukuzawa  from  Japan,  Herbert  Spen- 
cer from  the  Thames,  the  soul  of  Gambetta  from  the 
Seine,  —  I  care  not  what  agnostic  or  what  cultured 
pagan  theist,  —  and  we  shall  all  be  agreed  that  de- 
liverance from  the  love  of  sin  and  the  guilt  of  it  is 
essential  to  our  peace  with  the  moral  law.  On  the 
two  most  fundamental  points  of  what  I  love  to  call 
axiomatic  theology,  or  the  religion  of  self-evident 
truth,  all  serious  men  who  believe  in  a  moral  law 
may  be  brought  to  an  acceptance  of  a  cosmopolitan 
faith.  I  confess  I  have  some  ambition  to  advance 
such  a  faith,  and  to  hold  as  the  basis  of  my  own 
creed  convictions  acceptable  to  all  thinking  men 
throughout  the  world  and  in  every  age.  On  the 
basis  of  the  cosmopolitan  truths  of  axiomatic  theol- 
ogy I  have  been  standing  on  every  intellectual  and 
moral  battle-field  I  have  seen  on  the  long  war-path 
around  the  planet.    The  double  deliverance  from  the 


NEW   DEPAETURES.  O 

love  of  sin  and  the  guilt  of  it  is  the  desire  of  all 
nations.  The  serious  heart  of  humanity  has  never 
found  intelligent  peace  in  any  human  creed,  but 
finds  it  swiftly  in  Christianity,  when  the  gospel  is 
presented  in  clear,  devout,  scholarly,  aggressive,  un- 
diluted form. 

As  Christians,  we  believe  that  it  is  only  by  the 
new  birth  and  by  the  Atonement  that  we  can  be  de- 
livered from  the  love  of  sin  and  the  guilt  of  it.  We 
are  profoundly  convinced  that,  when  we  are  deliv- 
ered from  the  love  of  sin,  we  are  not  thereby  de- 
livered from  the  guilt  of  it.  We  believe  that  it  is 
the  sight  of  God's  face  in  Christ  that  effectually 
melts  the  heart  and  produces  regeneration.  What 
we,  therefore,  wish  to  do  for  the  world  is  to  lift  up 
before  it  the  cross,  because  we  find  that  when  we  see 
the  cross  it  is  no  cross  to  bear  the  cross.  Beholding 
God  as  a  Redeemer  makes  us  glad  to  take  Him  as 
Lord,  and  thus  Christianity  provides  for  our  deliver- 
ance from  the  guilt  of  sin  and  the  love  of  it. 

It  is  undeniable  that  character  under  irreversible 
natural  law  tends  to  final  permanence  —  good  or 
bad.  The  longer  any  soul  lives  in  the  love  of  what 
God  hates  and  in  the  hate  of  what  God  loves,  the 
longer  it  is  likely  to  do  so.  Fixation  of  character  is 
the  end  of  probation.  Whenever  and  wherever  an 
unchanging  bent  of  character  is  attained,  probation 
ends.  It  is  self-evident  that  a  final  permanence  or 
unchanging  bent  of  character  can  be  reached  but 
once. 

The  only  safe  philosophical  answer,  therefore,  to 
the  question  :  What  must  I  do  to  be  saved  ?  is :  Ac- 


6  OCCIDENT. 

quire  now  similarity  of  feeling  with  God.  Obtain 
now  deliverance  from  both  the  love  of  sin  and  the 
guilt  of  sin.  Now  is  the  accepted  time ;  now  is  the 
day  of  salvation  ;  now,  and  perhaps  not  to-morrow, 
for  character,  without  the  loss  of  freedom,  tends  rap- 
idly to  permanence. 

Whatever  changes  the  accredited  practical  answer 
to  the  question  :  What  must  I  do  to  be  saved  ?  is 
fundamental  in  theology  and  philosophy.  The  hy- 
pothesis of  probation  after  death  does  change  this  an- 
swer. It  changes  the  scriptural  answer.  It  changes 
the  philosophical  answer.  It  is,  therefore,  a  funda- 
mental change.  In  the  name  of  all  sound  philosophy 
and  theology,  as  well  as  in  that  of  the  wants  of  the 
world,  I  repudiate  departures  from  religious  funda- 
mentals. I  repudiate  departures  from  doctrines  that 
look  like  unessentials,  if  these  apparent  unessentials 
touch  fundamentals. 

My  object  in  this  opening  address  is  to  set  before 
you  as  clearly  as  I  can  what  the  standard  orthodoxy 
of  New  England  teaches  as  to  probation  after  death ; 
and,  next,  what  the  so-called  new  departure  teaches. 
In  a  subsequent  prelude  I  shall  discuss  exegetically 
the  question,  ''  Does  death  end  probation  ?  "  Here 
and  now  I  am  anxious  only  that  you  should  compare, 
in  broad  outlines,  the  old  and  the  new.  I  am  in 
favor  of  the  new.  One  of  my  central  principles  is  to 
seize  the  new,  the  true,  the  strategic,  and  force  it 
into  practical  application  to  current  affairs.  I  am 
ready,  I  hope,  in  life  and  in  death,  to  grasp  the  new, 
if  it  be  better  than  the  old ;  otherwise  not.  [Ap- 
plause.] 


NEW  DEPARTURES.  7 

Professor  Dorner,  of  Berlin,  whom  I  revere  for 
the  larger  part  of  the  work  he  has  done  in  German 
theology,  holds  doctrines  and  hypotheses  concerning 
probation  after  death  that  many  scholars  of  the  high- 
est repute  regard  as  exceedingly  nebulous,  erratic, 
unscientific,  and  anti-scriptural.  Allow  me  to  sum- 
marize his  positions  on  this  topic,  and  to  contrast 
them  with  those  I  have  received  from  New  Eng- 
land Orthodoxy.  I  raise  the  question.  New  Eng- 
land Orthodoxy  or  German  state  church  theology : 
which  ?  Park  or  Dorner  :  which  ?  That  is  a  ques- 
tion of  the  hour,  and  it  is  really  one  of  world-wide 
interest,  because  this  high  theme  touches  Christian 
missions.  It  touches  all  evangelical  religious  aggres- 
siveness throughout  the  earth.  On  this  subject  Ger- 
many, England,  Scotland,  India,  Japan,  Australasia, 
as  well  as  our  own  land,  may  be  expected  to  listen. 

Here,  then,  is  the  outline  of  what  I,  for  one,  not 
claiming  to  represent  others,  hold  as  orthodoxy  :  — 

1.  God  is  immanent  in  the  moral  nature  of  every 
man,  and  whoever  permanently  rejects  or  accepts 
the  innermost  voice  of  conscience  rejects  or  accepts 
the  essential  Christ. 

By  the  essential  Christ  I  mean  the  Logos.  "  In 
the  beginning  was  the  Word,  and  the  Word  was 
with  God,  and  the  Word  was  God."  This  is  the 
true  light  which  light eth  every  man  that  cometh 
into  the  world. 

2.  Every  free  moral  agent,  therefore,  has  oppor- 
tunity to  accept  or  reject  the  essential  Christ. 

Orthodoxy  is  not  tritheistic,  although  it  is  trinita- 
rian.     Scholars  on  this  platform  do  not  believe  in 


8  OCCIDENT. 

three  Gods,  but  in  one  God.  They  do  not  divide  his 
substance,  although  they  do  not  unify  his  subsisten- 
cies.  The  essential  character  of  God  is  the  essential 
character  of  Christ.  Conscience  does  not  inform  us 
of  the  historic  Christ,  but  it  informs  us  of  God's 
character,  and  God's  character  is  Christ's  charac- 
ter. I  would  recall  here  whatever  has  been  said  in 
the  past  of  this  lectureship  concerning  conscience 
as  a  revelation  in  man  of  truths  essentially  supernat- 
ural. 

3.  Heathen,  therefore,  as  their  consciences  reveal 
to  them  the  essential  condition  of  salvation,  so  far  as 
it  depends  on  man,  have  a  probation  as  protracted 
and  multiplex  as  their  choices  to  obey  or  disobey 
conscience. 

While  this  is  plainly  a  philosophical,  it  is  also  a 
scriptural  truth.  '^  In  every  nation,  he  that  feareth 
God  and  worketh  righteousness  is  accepted  with 
Him."  "  The  kingdom  of  heaven  is  within  us." 
"  They  that  sin  without  law  shall  perish  without 
law."  The  heathen,  "having  not  the  law,  are  a  law 
unto  themselves,  their  consciences  bearing  witness 
and  their  thoughts  accusing  or  else  excusing  one 
another." 

4.  It  is  through  the  divine  mercy,  as  exhibited  in 
an  Atonement,  that  the  heathen  are  saved,  if  at  all, 
without  hearing  of  the  historical  Christ. 

''  Those  who  lived  with  the  Logos,"  said  Justin 
Martyr,  "  were  Christians,  as  Socrates  and  Hera- 
clitus,  and  others  like  them." 

5.  They  who  fear  God  and  work  righteousness, 
even  if  they  have  not  heard  of  the  historical  Christ, 


NEW  DEPARTUEES.       .  9 

have  hoi?/  faith,  and  tliis  would  develop  into  his- 
torical saving  faith  on  the  presentation  of  evidence. 

This  distinction  between  holy  faith  and  saving 
faith  is  to  be  found  in  accredited  scholarly  systems 
of  theology.  Plato  or  Socrates,  if  saved,  was  saved 
by  the  Atonement,  God's  mercy  covering  their  guilt 
for  Christ's  sake.  So  infants  know  nothing  of  the 
historical  Christ,  and  yet  are  saved  by  the  Atone- 
ment, God's  arm  iindergirding  them  in  the  darkness. 

Do  not  say  that  I  am  supposing  that  a  man  is 
saved  by  his  good  works.  Do  not  imagine  that  I 
teach  that  accepting  the  guidance  of  God  in  con- 
science is,  for  a  man  in  the  condition  of  any  one  in 
this  audience,  a  sufficient  proof  of  his  loyalty  to 
God.  Do  not  say  that  I  teach  that  man  saves  him- 
self. At  this  point  I  am  speaking  only  of  those  to 
whom  no  presentation  of  the  historic  Christ  has  been 
made,  but  whose  consciences  alone,  according  to  both 
Scripture  and  science,  are  a  divine  guide  to  the  way 
of  peace. 

6.  Human  nature  is  such,  however,  that  without 
the  influence  of  the  gospel,  only  a  few  among  mill- 
ions do  attain  deliverance  from  the  love  of  sin,  ac- 
quire real  harmony  with  the  moral  law,  and  accept 
gladly,  permanently,  and  unqualifiedly  the  essential 
Christ  of  conscience. 

7.  A  knowledge  of  the  character,  life,  and  death 
of  the  historic  Christ  must  therefore  be  carried  to 
the  heathen  and  to  the  whole  world. 

8.  This  formal  presentation  of  the  historic  Christ 
immensely  increases  human  responsibility,  and  also, 
as  the  history  of  the  Christian  ages  shows,  the  force 


10  OCCIDENT. 

of  the  motives  which  deliver  men  from  the  love  of 
sin. 

9.  It  is  a  searching  self-evident  truth,  which  can- 
not be  too  often  emphasized,  that  men  must  be  de- 
livered both  from  the  love  of  sin  and  from  the  guilt 
of  it,  in  order  to  have  peace  in  presence  of  infinite 
holiness. 

10.  Christianity,  and  it  only  of  all  the  religions  of 
the  earth,  teaches  how  deliverance  from  the  love  of 
sin  ma}^  be  effected  by  the  new  birth,  and  from  the 
guilt  of  sin  through  an  Atonement,  without  the  viola- 
tion of  any  self-evident  truth. 

11.  It  is  the  sight  of  an  Atonement  which  is  the 
chief  force  in  producing  the  new  birth.  Beholding 
God  as  a  historic  Saviour  makes  us  glad  to  take  Him 
as  Lord,  and  therefore  the  preaching  of  the  gospel 
to  all  the  world  is  the  supreme  work  of  those  who 
would  deliver  the  world  from  the  love  of  sin  and  the 
guilt  of  it. 

12.  Every  man  who  is  a  free  agent  and  has  a  con- 
science has  a  fair  chance  in  this  life  to  accept  or 
reject  the  essential  Christ. 

13.  Every  man  who,  in  addition  to  these  opportu- 
nities, is  taught  in  this  life  the  gospel  of  the  histor- 
ical Christ,  has  more  than  a  fair  chance. 

14.  Infants,  idiots,  lunatics,  are  not  moral  agents ; 
they  have  not  sinned.  The  least  we  can  say  of  any 
souls  that  pass  out  of  this  life  without  attaining 
moral  responsibility  is  that  they  are  in  the  hands  of 
the  Judge  of  all  the  earth,  who  will  assuredly  do 
right.  They  have  no  record  of  sin  behind  them,  and 
the  divine  mercy  enfolds  them.     As  they  have  not 


NEW  DEPAKTUKES.  11 

learned  the  evils  of  sin,  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  in 
death,  at  the  sight  of  God's  face,  they  will  acquire 
predominant  harmony  of  soul  with  Him.  That  a 
state  of  education  and  progress  may  await  such  souls 
in  another  life  is  not  denied. 

Nothing  in  these  propositions  is  to  be  understood 
as  impugning  the  doctrine  of  original  sin  or  inher- 
ited evil  propensity.  I  am  using  the  word  "  sin  "  in 
its  strict  signification,  as  indicating  evil  personal 
choice. 

15.  Probation  in  its  strict  sense  ends  at  death. 
Orthodox  theology  teaches  that  even  the  lost  souls 

of  the  universe  are  free  agents.  They  retain  ability, 
but  have  lost  willingness  to  repent.  If  a  soul  is  not 
a  free  agent,  it  cannot  be  virtuous  or  vicious.  In 
one  sense,  therefore,  probation  continues  forever  with 
all  souls.  But  in  the  strict  sense  probation  means 
a  state  in  which  souls  do,  and  not  merely  may, 
change  from  an  undecided  to  a  decided  condition  of 
loyalty  or  disloyalty  to  God.  Orthodoxy  teaches 
that  these  changes  occur  only  in  this  life. 

16.  Every  responsible  human  being,  by  the  gift  of 
a  free  will  and  conscience,  or  by  this  gift  and  that 
of  the  knowledge  of  the  gospel  besides,  having  had 
a  fair  chance,  or  more  than  a  fair  chance,  the  divine 
]ove  and  mercy  are  not  questionable  ;  a  perfect  the- 
odicy is  possible  ;  the  ways  of  God  to  men  are  jus- 
tified. 

In  contrast  with  this  outline,  I  give  now  a  very 
swift  sketch  of  the  new  departure,  based  chiefly  on 
the  state  church  theology  of  Germany,  or,  rather, 
on  the  eschatology  of  Dorner. 


12  OCCIDENT. 

1.  An  acceptance  or  rejection  of  tlie  historic  Christ 
is  necessary  in  every  case  to  salvation  or  its  opposite. 

2.  Decisive  probation  consists  in  the  opportunity 
of  the  soul  freely  and  intelligently  to  accept  or  re- 
ject the  historic  Christ. 

3.  Those  who  die  without  a  knowledge  of  the 
gospel  have  not  had  a  full  and  fair  probation. 

4.  Infants,  idiots,  lunatics,  and  some  heathen  have 
evidently  no  opportunity  in  this  life  to  accept  or  re- 
ject the  historic  Christ ;  for  they  know  nothing  of 
him. 

5.  As  these  classes  have  no  decisive  probation 
here,  it  is  permissible  to  hope  that  they  have  one 
hereafter. 

6.  In  the  intermediate  state,  between  death  and 
the  general  judgment,  probation  may  continue  for 
souls  to  whom  a  presentation  of  the  historic  Christ 
was  not  made  in  this  life. 

7.  These  views  offer  a  better  theodicy  —  that  is, 
a  more  complete  justification  of  the  ways  of  God  to 
men  —  than  the  accepted  and  standard  teaching  of 
orthodoxy. 

Any  friends  of  the  new  departure  who  are  present 
will  notice  that  I  am  very  careful  not  to  exaggerate 
the  breadth  of  the  departure.  I  do  not  affirm  that 
the  apologists  for  these  divisive  novelties  teach  that  it 
is  permissible  to  inculcate  as  a  biblical  dogma  that 
certain  classes  of  souls  must  have  a  probation  here- 
after, and  that,  if  they  do  not,  no  justification  of  the 
ways  of  God  to  men  is  possible.  They  do  say  that 
it  is  permissible  to  hope  that  such  probation  lies  in 
the  intermediate  state,  and  that  we  must  insist  on 


NEW   DEPAllTURES.  13 

this  hope  if  we  are  to  cherish  worthy  ideas  of  the 
divine  character. 

Where  does  Dorner  teach  wliat  these  seven  prop- 
ositions contain?  In  a  score  of  passages  of  his  "Sys- 
tematic Theology,"  especially  in  the  section  on  Es- 
chatology,  which  I  beg  you  to  examine,  if  you  are 
in  doubt  as  to  the  source  from  which  several  recent 
American  suggestions  as  to  new  theological  depart- 
ures have  been  derived.  (See  the  original  German, 
or  the  translation  in  T.  &  T.  Clark's  Theological 
Library  of  ''  Dorner's  System  of  Christian  Doctrine," 
vol.  iv.  pp.  373-434.  See,  also,  an  article  on  "  Dr. 
Dorner's  Position  with  Regard  to  Probation  after 
Death,"  by  the  Rev.  W.  H.  Cobb,  in  the  "  BibUo- 
theca  Sacra  "  for  October,  1882,  pp.  751-773.)  Here 
is  a  characteristic  passage  from  Dorner:  "  The  ab- 
soluteness of  Christianity  demands  that  no  one  be 
judged  before  Christianity  has  been  made  accessible 
and  brought  home  to  him  ;  but  this  is  not  the  case 
in  this  life  with  millions  of  human  beings.  Nay, 
even  within  the  Cluirch  there  are  periods  and  circles 
"where  the  gospel  does  not  really  approach  men  as 
that  which  it  is.  Moreover,  those  dying  in  child- 
hood have  not  been  able  to  decide  personally  for 
Christianity.  Jesus  seeks  the  lost.  The  lost  are 
to  be  sought  also  in  the  kingdom  of  the  dead.  The 
opposite  view  leads  to  an  absolute  decree  of  rejection 
in  reference  to  all  who  have  died  and  die  as  heathen  ; 
whereas  Christian  grace  is  universal."  ("  System  of 
Christian  Doctrine,"  vol.  iv.  p.  409.) 

Who  that  has  learned  what  a  scholarly  orthodoxy 
really  teaches  does  not   see  at  a  glance  that,  these 


14  OCCIDENT. 

propositions   are    ir-accurate,    confused,    misleading, 
and,  to  an  appalling  degree,  spiritually  hazardous  ? 

1.  The  new  departure  begins  with  a  most  atro- 
ciously incorrect  statement  concerning  the  essential 
condition  of  salvation. 

2.  It  gives  a  false  definition  of  what  constitutes  a 
full  and  fair  probation. 

3.  A  first  blunder  leads  to  a  second,  and  then  a 
third  is  made  to  cover  the  second,  and*  a  fourth  to 
cover  the  third.  An  inaccurate  statement  peculiar 
to  many  state  church  theologies  as  to  the  essential 
condition  of  salvation  leads  to  a  difficulty  in  vindi- 
cating the  divine  justice.  In  view  of  this  difficulty, 
which  ought  never  to  have  existed,  the  theory  of  a 
continued  probation  is  adopted  as  a  means  of  escape. 
Here,  as  elseAvhere,  orthodoxy  begins  right  and  ends 
right  in  its  fundamental  courses  of  thought,  while 
heterodoxy  begins  wrong  and  ends  wrong. 

Our  fathers  had  much  discussion  over  the  doctrine 
of  decrees ;  and,  indeed,  it  is  a  Avonder  that  we  do 
not  have  more,  for  whoever  looks  into  the  mighty 
themes  of  a  theodicy  must  regard  election,  decrees, 
foreordination,  free  will,  fate,  the  matters  concern- 
ing which  the  angels  debated  in  Milton's  "  Paradise 
Lost,"  as  really  supreme  topics  of  philosophy  as  well 
as  of  religious  science.  Our  thoughts  are  absorbed 
by  secular  matters ;  otherwise  we  should  be  awake, 
as  our  fathers  were,  to  the  great  problems  involved 
in  election.  As  to  the  salvation  of  elect  infants  only, 
scholarship  has  passed  by  this  doctrine  a  long  while. 
The  new  departure  is  really  a  reversion  to  a  med- 
iseval  form  of  theological  speculation.     This  teach- 


NEW   DEPARTURES.  15 

ing  of  Dorner's  seems  to  me  almost  as  atrocious 
as  the  worst  form  of  the  old  doctrme  concerning 
decrees. 

4.  I  understand  Dorner  to  deny  that  there  is  any 
sin  that  can  ruin  the  soul,  except  a  rejection  of  the 
historic  Christ,  proclaimed  in  the  name  of  the  mir- 
acles of  the  New  Testament,  or  in  that  of  proof  of 
yet  superior  force  to  be  presented  after  death.  Evi- 
dence, of  course,  must  go  with  the  proclamation ; 
and,  if  such  evidence  is  not  brought  decisively  home 
to  the  soul  here,  it  will  be  in  the  next  world. 

5.  This  series  of  propositions  underrates  what  is 
scientifically  known  in  our  day  as  to  the  natural  op- 
erations of  conscience.  It  is  hugely  unscientific  to 
suppose  that,  even  without  a  knowledge  of  the  his- 
toric Christ,  a  soul  may  not  so  disobey  conscience  as 
to  drop  into  a  condition  of  moral  obduracy,  and  at- 
tain a  final  permanence  of  character  dissimilar  to 
that  of  God.  It  is  necessary  for  Dorner  to  maintain, 
and  he  does  assert,  that  without  a  knowledge  of  the 
historic  Christ  7io  soid  can  so  sin  as  to  he  lost. 

6.  It  is  spiritually  hazardous,  in  an  appalling  de- 
gree, to  give,  as  Dorner  does,  such  definitions  of 
what  a  full  and  decisive  probation  is  that  few  men 
will  think  they  have  had  a  fair  chance,  and  then  to 
promise,  on  most  easy  and  liberal  conditions,  a  con- 
tinued probation. 

7.  In  practical  effect,  the  distorted  orthodoxy  here 
opposed  has  always  immensely  injured  all  churches 
that  have  adopted  it.  The  great  Scottish  missionary, 
Duff,  said  that  the  life  of  the  German  state  churches 
can  be  described  in  one  word,  —  petrifaction.     This 


16  OCCIDENT. 

is  not  true  of  all  of  them,  for  there  are  many  vigor- 
ous evangelical  churches  in  Germany ;  but,  so  far  as 
Dorner's  eschatology,  so  far  as  this  idea  of  probation 
after  death,  has  been  brought  into  working  influence 
over  great  congregations,  so  far  as  it  has  been  ab- 
sorbed into  the  lives  of  preachers  or  people,  it  has 
destroyed  Christian  aggressiveness  in  a  great  degree. 
It  has  lowered  the  tone  of  preaching.  It  has  cut  the 
nerve  of  missions.  It  has  as  good  as  scuttled  the 
ships  that  carry  the  glad  tidings  of  the  gospel  to 
pagan  lands.  I  have  no  lamp  to  guide  my  feet  but 
that  of  experience. 

Do  you  complain  that  I  am  now  speaking  with  im- 
plied irreverence  for  German  scholarship,  and  that 
I  have  hitherto  had  the  habit  of  treating  it  with  the 
utmost  respect  ?  No  one  ever  heard  me  speak  of 
German  theology  in  its  relations  to  the  mass  of  the 
people  as  other  than  inferior  to  New  England  Ortho- 
doxy. Our  churches  are  as  superior  to  the  German 
in  their  aggressive  power,  and  in  the  preachableness 
of  their  doctrines,  as  German  learning  in  matters  of 
philosophical  and  scientific  import  is  superior  to  ours. 
The  German  universities  are  better  than  ours ;  but 
our  churches  are  better  than  the  German.  Our 
preaching  is  better  than  theirs.  Professor  Christ- 
lieb,  of  Bonn,  with  whom  I  had  the  honor,  not  long 
ago,  to  hold  many  hours  of  conversation  on  the  banks 
of  the  Rhine,  has  assailed  the  German  state  church 
theology  for  precisely  the  things  that  are  copied  out 
of  it  by  some  of  the  friends  of  the  new  departure.  I 
am  careful  to  say,  however,  that  I  discuss  Dorner's 
views  only,  and  not  those  of  any  preacher  or  theolo- 


NEW  DEPARTURES.  17 

gian  here.  Christlieb  teaches,  with  the  emphasis  of 
scriptural  truth,  the  new  birth  and  Atonement.  He 
insists  that  we  must  be  delivered  from  the  love  of 
sin  and  the  guilt  of  it.  And  what  do  the  state 
church  preachers  say,  in  reply  ?  "  Bei  uns  ist  es 
nicht  so  !  "  "  With  us  there  is  no  such  preaching. 
Why  be  perpetually  disturbing  the  churches  with 
the  doctrine  of  the  new  birth,  and  with  assertions  of 
the  vicarious  nature  of  the  Atonement?  Our  con- 
victions are  that  whoever  lives  about  right  will  come 
out  right,  and  that,  if  there  be  no  decisive  probation 
here,  there  will  be  one  hereafter." 

This  idea,  that  decisive  probation  consists  always 
and  only  in  the  free,  intelligent  rejection  of  the  his- 
toric Christ,  cannot  be  opposed  without  great  danger. 
I  run  enormous  risks  in  attacking  it  here  to-day,  for 
I  shall  be  quoted  as  saying  that  I  do  not  believe  that 
Christ  is  the  author  of  our  salvation.  I  shall  be 
quoted  as  saying  that  whoever  follows  his  conscience 
is  safe,  whether  he  believes  in  Christ  or  not.  Do  not 
be  misled  by  any  such  random  assertions  of  people 
who  are  not  in  this  assembly  from  week  to  week  and 
year  to  year. 

Our  salvation  is  wrought  through  Christ,  and 
through  Him  only.  If  I  were  not  a  believer  in  the 
historic  Christ,  I  could  find  in  philosophy  no  peace 
for  my  soul ;  for  I  think  I  know,  as  well  as  that  I 
am  alive,  that  I  must  be  delivered  from  the  love  of 
sin  and  the  guilt  of  it,  and  that  when  I  am  delivered 
from  the  love  of  it  I  am  not  from  the  guilt  of  it.  I 
want  an  Atonement.  I  want  the  sight  of  the  cross 
to  melt  me  and  produce  in  my  soul  the  new  birth. 

2 


18  OCCIDENT. 

"Without  the  cross,  philosophy  is  to  me  a  Gehenna 
for  the  soul,  because  it  shows  that  of  all  creatures 
we  are  the  most  miserable.  We  have  sinned ;  the 
record  is  against  us  in  the  past;  but  there  is  no 
remedy  for  our  guilt.  In  practice,  only  they  who 
perceive  that  God  is  inconceivably  merciful,  or  that 
He  is  ready  to  cover  our  guilt  with  an  Atonement, 
come  into  affectionate,  total,  irreversible  loyalty  to 
Him.  To  take  God  as  Saviour  and  choose  Him  as 
Lord,  — this  is  faith ;  this  is  what  makes  a  man  faith- 
ful. If  Christianity  is  not  to  be  given  us  as  the 
basis  of  hope  for  deliverance  from  the  love  of  sin 
and  the  guilt  of  it,  I  have  no  hope  of  such  deliver- 
ance. Nevertheless,  I  hold  what  I  conceive  to  be  the 
biblical  doctrine :  that  if  there  be  a  Cornelius  who 
has  not  heard  of  the  historic  Christ,  but  who  fears 
God  and  works  righteousness,  he  is  accepted  of  God 
through  an  Atonement.  It  is  Revelation  which  af- 
firms that  they  who  sin  without  law  shall  perish 
without  hiAV. 

I  am  not  a  partisan  in  theology.  I  have  great 
reverence  for  many  who  admire  the  German  state 
church  theology  ;  but  while  I  respect  them  as  men, 
I  do  not  agree  to  follow  them  as  theological  leaders. 
I  believe  we  have  better  leadership  at  home  on  this 
matter  than  we  can  obtain  at  present  in  Germany. 
They  who  follow  Dorner's  eschatology,  and  reject 
average  New  England,  Scottish,  and  even  Anglican 
teaching  on  this  topic  of  probation  after  death,  are 
like  men  who  go  abroad  to  see  the  Alps  and  the 
Himalayas,  the  Nile  and  the  Ganges,  and  have  never 
seen  tbe  American  Great  Lakes,  the  Yosemite,  and 


NEW   DEPARTURES.  19 

Niagara.  We  have  discussed  this  topic  of  probation, 
probably,  more  thoroughly  in  New  England  than  it 
was  ever  discussed  in  Germany.  I  believe  New 
England  theology  has  now  a  right  to  stand  upon  its 
record  of  scholarly  discussions,  and  rise  to  its  full 
height  of  self-respect  and  earnestness,  and  lead  the 
world  into  biblical  views  on  these  colossal  themes. 
[Applause.]  There  never  was  open  to  it  a  better 
opportunity  for  such  service.  Scotch  theology  is 
pre-occupied  at  this  moment  with  questions  of  Old 
Testament  criticism.  English  theology  is  having  its 
attention  distracted  by  the  swift  advance  of  great 
problems  connected  with  disestablishment.  Mate- 
rialism is  occupying  the  attention  of  many  abroad. 
Agnosticism,  historic  skepticism,  are  matters  of  more 
present  importance  than  this  new  departure.  But 
with  us  there  seems  to  be  a  providential  call  for  the 
discussion  of  eschatology. 

I  have  no  right  to  give  advice  to  anybody,  but 
what  I  purpose  to  do,  for  one,  is  to  claim  liberty  for 
scholarly  and  advanced  views  whenever  mediaeval 
and  reversionary  views  try  to  throttle  them.  You 
say  that  the  men  who  hold  the  doctrines  of  the  new 
departure  do  not  preach  them.  But  if  they  hold 
these  doctrines  they  do  not  preach  the  orthodox  ones. 
[Laughter.]  And  just  as  a  man  may  be  choked  by 
holding  a  little  heresy,  so  a  whole  church  may  be 
choked  by  one  section  of  it  looking  exceedingly  grave, 
perhaps  indignant,  if  the  other  section  preaches  or- 
thodoxy without  dilution.  I  will  not  say  that  I 
would  have  every  church  member  who  holds  these 
views  of  Dorner  turned  out  of  his  connections ;  but 


20  OCCIDENT. 

I  would  have  every  applicant  for  a  preacher's  posi- 
tion very  candidly  examined  on  this  matter.  [Ap- 
plause.] I  think  I  may  venture  to  say  that  it  is  safe 
to  agree  with  Andover  and  Boston  in  the  proposi- 
tion that  a  man  who  definitely  champions  Corner's 
eschatology  is  not  precisely  the  person  to  teach  our 
young  men  theological  science.  [Applause.]  This 
audience  represents  evangelical  Christendom.  You 
are  not  Congregationalists  merely,  and  I  beg  your 
pardon  for  touching  on  the  troubles  of  the  small  de- 
nomination to  which  it  is  my  fortune  to  belong.  I 
have  been  speaking  so  long  for  all  the  evangelical 
denominations  that  I  hardly  know  whether  I  am  a 
Congregationalist,  a  Methodist,  a  Baptist,  an  Episco- 
palian, or  a  Presbyterian.  The  real  truth  is  that  the 
foundation  of  Congregationalism  is  Plymouth  Rock, 
and  that  this  rock  is  not  disintegrating  nor  splitting. 
[Applause.]  A  little  dust  is  being  blo^vn  off  it,  but 
it  never  belonged  to  the  rock,  [Loud  laughter  and 
applause.] 


LECTURE  I. 

ADVANCED   THOUGHT  IN  ENGLAND  AND   SCOTLAND. 

God  be  thanked  that  in  our  time  there  are  no  for- 
eign lands  !  Csesar  could  not  drive  around  the  Roman 
Empire  in  less  than  one  hundred  days ;  we  can  now 
send  a  letter,  a  bale  of  goods,  a  man,  around  the 
whole  globe  in  ninety.  The  antipodes  are  not  far- 
ther from  us  than  w-ere  the  outskirts  of  the  Roman 
Empire  from  the  city  of  the  Seven  Hills.  If  Cae- 
sar's neighbors  were  all  w^ho  dwelt  on  the  rim  of  the 
Mediterranean,  ours  are  all  who  dwell  on  the  rim 
of  the  whole  earth.  Communication  is  so  swift  be- 
tween country  and  country  that  no  shores  are  dis- 
tant. There  can  be  no  more  hermit  nations.  No 
people  can  live  behind  a  screen.  The  mental  seclu- 
sion of  false  faiths  must  be  broken  up.  Only  an 
hundred  years  ago  and  in  all  previous  history,  the 
nations  were  land-locked  bodies  of  water;  a  wave 
raised  in  any  one  of  them  did  not  naturally  flow  into 
another;  but  the  levels  of  civilization  have  risen; 
these  isolated  lakes  have  flowed  together ;  and  now 
any  great  wave  raised  anywhere  in  commerce,  sci- 
ence, politics,  education,  or  religion,  breaks  sooner  or 
later,  in  foam  and  thunder,  on  all  the  shores  of  the 
advanced  nations.  We  cannot  cut  ourselves  off  from 
the  other  side  of  the  globe  ;  humanity  is  a  unit,  com- 


22  OCCIDENT. 

mercially,  scientifically,  socially,  industrially,  almost 
politieall3%  to-day.  Hereafter  the  earth  will  be  healed 
or  2)oisoned  very  much  as  a  whole.  The  isolation  of 
people  from  people  is  becoming  wholly  and  perma- 
nently impracticable.  The  light  of  the  Occident  can- 
not be  hidden  from  the  Orient.  The  national  era  has 
passed  away ;  the  international  and  cosmopolitan  has 
bef^cun. 

In  the  ceiling  of  the  Sistine  Chapel,  at  Rome,  Mi- 
chael Angelo  has  represented  the  creation  of  the  first 
human  soul.  The  picture  exhibits  a  Divine  Form 
floating  in  infinite  space,  and  extending  a  hand  to- 
ward the  upraised  palm  of  Adam.  The  man  lies 
almost  prone  upon  the  earth.  He  is  a  body,  but  not 
yet  a  soul.  Although  the  members  of  his  form  are 
complete,  symmetrical,  majestic,  they  do  not  yet  feel 
their  unity  with  each  other.  A  spark  passes  from 
the  divine  forefinger  to  the  suppliant,  limp,  passive 
hand  of  man.  The  different  members  of  his  form 
are  at  last  unified.  They  possess  a  living  soul,  which 
is  one  and  indivisible.  This  picture  is  a  proper 
emblem  of  the  present  condition  of  the  world.  The 
nations  are  the  different  members  of  the  body  of 
humanity,  and  yet  they  are  not  unified  by  a  com- 
mon soul.  What  is  lacking  is  a  cosmopolitan  faith, 
a  divine  spark,  making  the  innermost  convictions  of 
the  nations  the  same  on  all  high  themes.  As  I  study 
the  signs  of  the  heavens  and  the  earth,  the  uplifted 
suppliant  hand  of  humanity,  a  body  not  yet  thor- 
oughly vitalized,  is  being  approached  by  a  Form 
loftier  than  the  stars.  A  Divine  Hand  is  being  ex- 
tended toward   our   race ;    nay,   has   been  extended 


ADVANCED   THOUGHT   IN   ENGLAND.  23 

for  thousands  of  years,  but  in  these  last  ages  is  be- 
coming more  distinctly  visible  than  ever  before.  I 
anticipate  the  passage  of  a  unifying  spark  from  the 
Divine  Hand  to  the  form  of  humanity,  not  yet  uni- 
fied ;  the  transmission  of  an  electric  flame,  a  vivify- 
ing faith,  a  series  of  scientific  convictions  concerning 
things  natural  and  supernatural,  that  will  make  the 
world  intellectually  and  morally  one.  This  spark 
Avill  be,  of  course,  a  scholarly  and  aggressive  Chris- 
tianity in  both  its  historical  and  its  experimental 
form.  With  it  there  will  be  united  all  accredited 
science,  for  God  is  one  and  all  truth  is  one.  A  sci- 
entific supernaturalism  is  a  phrase  by  which  I  like  to 
describe  the  unified  teachings  of  Christianity  and 
science.  And  it  is  this  on  the  passage  of  which 
from  God's  finger  to  man's  I  look  with  awe,  as  the 
greatest  thing  I  have  seen  in  my  tour  around  the 
world,  and  the  greatest  thing  I  can  promote  by  any 
review  of  my  experience. 

My  heart  is  on  the  Ganges ;  it  is  on  the  Thames  ; 
it  is  in  the  great  cities  within  the  shadow  of  Fuji- 
san ;  it  is  in  the  islands  of  the  sea ;  it  is  under  the 
Southern  Cross.  I  am  attached  to  every  country  in 
which  I  have  found  men  struggling  toward  the  light. 
But  my  heart,  although  there,  is  here  also,  for  we 
are  a  part  of  this  dull,  lethargic  body,  not  yet  filled 
by  the  divine  electric  force.  In  the  growing  spirit- 
ual unity  of  the  whole  human  family,  I  would  have 
the  head  feel  its  responsibility.  The  Occident  is  the 
head  of  the  earth  and  the  right  hand  of  it.  Near- 
est to  God,  let  us  transmit  the  spark  of  scientific 
supernaturalism    into    the   civilization  of  the  whole 


24  OCCIDENT. 

planet,  and  so  make  its  reclining  form   stand  upon 
its  feet  and  worship  God. 

It  is  the  morning  of  September  7,  1880,  and  you 
are  in  New  York  harbor,  leaving  your  native  country, 
on  the  day  when  it  is  announced,  officially,  that  it  has 
50,000,000  inhabitants.  The  gray  sky,  the  familiar 
shores,  the  untried  experience  before  you,  the  part- 
ing from  scores  of  friends,  make  the  hour  pathetic. 
You  are  wrenched  at  last  from  the  firm  mother 
earth  ;  j^ou  have  seen  the  last  quivering,  intense  look 
of  farewell  on  the  faces  of  some  who  are  nearest  and 
dearest  to  you.  The  white  gulls  dip  their  wings  in 
the  sea,  and  utter  their  low  plaintive  cry  in  the  au- 
tumnal wind.  You  are  more  lonely  than  they.  You 
have  made  no  predictions  ;  you  know  not  what  is  to 
be  your  experience  ;  perhaps  you  ma}^  be  called  home 
within  a  few  months  ;  you  have  promised  no  one  that 
you  will  make  the  circuit  of  the  globe.  As  the  gates 
of  the  ocean  open  and  you  begin  to  hear  the  voice  of 
the  great  deep,  you  have  a  feeling  that,  possibly,  you 
are  looking  for  the  last  time  on  America.  You  lean 
over  the  gunwale  with  one  dearer  to  you  than  life, 
and  repeat  the  words  of  a  German  poet :  — 

*'  Flow  fair  beside  thy  Palisades, 
O  Hudson,  fair  and  free, 
Past  proud  Manhattan's  shore  of  ships 
And  green  Hoboken's  tree. 

"  The  white  sails  gleam  along  the  main. 
God  bless  the  land,  say  we  ; 
'T  is  a  good  land  to  fall  in  with, 
And  a  pleasant  land  to  see." 

Undoubtedly  the  innumerable  forms  and  motions 


ADVANCED   THOUGHT   IN  ENGLAND.  25 

of  waves,  the  foam  with  its  endless  varieties  of 
tracery  and  movement,  and  the  reflected  light  with 
its  multitudinous  colors  and  sparkles  and  its  far-flash- 
ing glades  of  fire,  are  the  most  beautiful  things  vis- 
ible at  sea  ;  the  rainbows,  the  stars,  the  changing 
moon,  the  sun,  the  shoreless  horizons,  the  storms,  the 
most  sublime.  Beauty  is  so  interwoven  with  sublim- 
ity in  the  sea  that  the  ocean  as  a  whole  is  a  series  of 
musical  notes  of  immeasurable  depth  of  tone  overlaid 
by  a  net-work  of  finer  harmony,  as,  in  a  great  anthem 
in  a  cathedral,  the  tones  of  the  organ  are  overlaid  by 
the  soft  chanting  of  human  voices.  The  green  trans- 
lucency  of  the  crest  of  a  wave  before  it  breaks  is  in 
itself  one  of  the  most  marvelous  of  the  minor  beau- 
ties of  the  sea  ;  but  that  translucency  laced  with 
foam  and  crossed  by  sunlight  and  shadow  in  alter- 
nation, and  the  whole  in  motion,  is  incapable  of 
being  transferred  to  canvas  even  by  Ruskin's  eyes 
and  Turner's  pencils.  It  happens,  at  times,  as  a 
ship  falls  from  the  crest  to  the  hollow  of  a  wave,  that 
the  prow,  or,  it  may  be,  a  whole  side,  dashes  up  a 
cloud  of  light  spray  as  white  as  snow.  According 
to  the  position  of  the  sun,  this  bank  of  flakes  takes 
the  glory  of  reflected  or  of  transmitted  radiance  ; 
and  by  its  lightness  and  almost  spirit-like  life  gives 
to  the  whole  heavy  ship  its  own  atmosphere,  until 
the  massive  hull  and  spars  seem  things  of  spirit  too, 
and  float  between  sky  and  sea  as  if  a  vision.  At  sun- 
set or  sunrise  in  a  clear  sky  at  sea,  when  the  disc  of 
the  great  orb  is  nearly  withdrawn  from  sight  behind 
a  watery  horizon  full  of  hurrying  waves,  the  motion 
of  the  distant  billows  across  the   face  of   the  sun 


26  OCCIDENT. 

seems  transferred  to  the  sun  itself,  which  appears  for 
a  few  seconds  flattened  and  flying  along  the  rim  of 
the  restless  deep.  Its  flame  and  its  emptiness  make 
the  poetry  of  this  ocean  fire  canoe.  It  has  no  occu- 
pant, no  oar,  no  sail,  but  is  a  perfect  boat  of  dazzling 
radiance,  shooting  with  incredible  rapidity  along  the 
tossing  edge  of  the  empurpled  and  golden  waves. 

England  over  the  bow ;  America  over  the  taffrail ; 
Greenland,  Iceland,  Norway,  to  the  left ;  South  Amer- 
ica, Africa,  Spain,  France,  to  the  right,  you  stand 
alone  on  your  ship's  deck  at  midnight,  at  the  centre 
of  the  Atlantic,  and  behold  in  thought  human  life  in 
multitudinous  aspects  and  nature  in  all  her  zones. 
The  w^hole  history  of  western  civilization  rises  natu- 
rally before  you,  and  you  are  brought  into  strange 
sympathy  wdth  all  the  lands  which  the  ocean  touches. 
The  rolling  of  the  ship  in  a  heavy  swell  gives  the 
masts  a  stately  motion  among  the  constellations. 
This  swaying  of  the  spars  and  yards  across  the  sky 
like  gigantic  pointers  has  a  wild  look,  as  the  sweep 
of  the  reeling  timbers  runs  from  Cassiopea's  chair 
almost  down  to  the  Pleiades.  Under  the  brass  hoods 
of  the  binnacles  hang  the  compass-cards  beneath  the 
strong  light  of  lamps,  and  your  ship  threads  the  black, 
tumultuous  sea  with  a  sure  movement  by  the  mystic 
guidance  of  the  magnetic  needle.  But,  in  the  four 
quarters  of  the  world  toward  which  you  look  in  the 
seething  darkness,  you  behold  generations  of  men 
passing  through  the  vexed  sea  of  history  not  alto- 
gether with  a  sure  movement.  They  are  not  easily 
able  to  free  themselves  from  the  tortures  of  pathless- 
ness  by  looking  at  the  moral  and  intellectual  needles 


ADVANCED   THOUGHT   IN  ENGLAND.  27 

hung  beneath  the  binnacles  and  under  the  strong 
lamps  of  the  boasted  culture  of  our  times.  It  is 
hardly  lawful  to  utter  all  that  obtains  a  voice  in  the 
soul  in  the  supreme  moments  of  solitude.  '^  Fixed 
ideas  about  God  and  human  nature,"  says  De  Toc- 
queville,  "  are  indispensable  to  the  daily  practice  of 
men's  lives,  but  the  practice  of  their  lives  prevents 
them  from  acquiring  such  ideas.  The  difficulty  ap- 
pears to  be  without  a  parallel."  (De  Tocqueville, 
''Democracy  in  America,"  vol.  ii.  book  i.  chap,  v.) 
You  meditate  long  on  this  difficulty,  as  you  look  to- 
ward past,  present,  and  future  generations  on  north, 
south,  east,  and  west.  The  frozen  seas,  the  torrid 
seas,  the  sunrise,  the  sunset,  the  night,  throw  back 
upon  you  the  deepest  human  problems  in  your  soli- 
tude in  mid-ocean.  In  the  region  called  Conscience 
in  the  human  soul,  when  the  laws  of  the  spiritual 
portion  of  human  nature  are  better  understood,  will 
be  found  a  moral  needle  related  to  all  the  universe 
by  spiritual  meridians,  and  as  sensitive  as  those  of 
the  most  trembling  compass,  and  no  more  subject 
to  variation,  and  making  the  safe  circumnavigation 
of  the  darkest  zones  of  duty  and  history  at  last  a 
possibility  of  fixed  science.  Your  prayer  is  that 
God  may  send  into  the  world  a  complete  knowledge 
of  the  moral  magnetic  needle  and  a  correct  chart  of 
all  the  oceans  of  the  human  soul.  Mental  science 
in  its  ethical  portions  has  yet  greater  advances  to 
make  than  navigation  made  at  the  discovery  of  the 
mariner's  compass. 

Crossing  the  Atlantic,  you  are  intensely  interested 
not  only  in  what  is  on  it,  and  in  it,  and  beyond  it, 


28  OCCIDENT. 

but  in  what  is  under  it.  Scholars  begin  to  whisper 
strange  things  about  the  lost  Atlantis,  of  which  the 
Azores  are  the  remnants.  You  are  told  that  Occi- 
dent and  Orient  had  their  mother  in  this  lost  Atlan- 
tis. In  the  progress  of  ancient  ages,  the  civilization 
of  Egypt  seems  to  spring  into  existence,  like  Minerva 
from  the  head  of  Jupiter,  full  panoplied  from  the 
start.  But  you  find  that  a  few  investigators  begin 
to  dream  that  Egypt  was  probably  colonized  from 
Atlantis,  a  mighty  island,  as  large  as  Australia,  lying 
off  the  mouth  of  the  Mediterranean,  at  Gibraltar. 
You  read  in  Plato  of  Atlantis  colonizing  not  merely 
Europe,  but  Africa  and  portions  of  Asia  and  parts 
of  the  continent  beyond  Atlantis,  toward  the  sunset. 
You  raise  the  question  whether  the  cities  of  Central 
America,  some  of  which  to  this  day  have  the  same 
names  to  a  letter  with  certain  cities  in  Asia  Minor, 
may  not  have  originated  in  this  now  submerged 
island.  Plato  represents  Solon  as  learning  in  Egypt 
that  Atlantis  sank  beneath  the  sea  in  a  sinHe  nic^ht. 
(See  the  "  Timseus,"  25  ;  or  Jowett's  "  Translation  of 
the  Dialogues  of  Plato,"  vol.  iii.  pp.  609,  610.)  You 
remember  that  Guyot  and  other  physical  geogra- 
phers affirm  that  the  Azores  lie  in  a  zone  of  fracture 
of  the  crust  of  our  earth.  The  small  waist  of  our 
own  continent,  the  rifted  lands  between  which  the 
Mediterranean  lies,  the  Isthmus  of  Suez,  the  promon- 
tories and  islands  of  Southern  Asia  and  the  East 
Indies,  show  this  to  have  been  a  line  of  terrific  up- 
heavals and  depressions.  Leaning  over  your  ship's 
gunwale  at  the  middle  of  the  Atlantic,  you  look 
into  the  ocean,  and  ask  whether  the  best  subject  left 


ADVANCED   THOUGHT   IN   ENGLAND.  29 

in  modern  times  for  an  epic  poem  is  not  Plato's  Tost 
Atlantis.  A  few  months  later  you  are  in  Athens, 
and  meet  Dr.  Schliemann,  in  his  Greek  mansion  and 
museum.  You  say  to  him,  "  You  have  uncovered 
Troy ;  why  do  you  not  dredge  for  the  lost  Atlantis, 
of  which  Plato  speaks  ?  "  And  the  doctor  replies, 
with  the  enthusiasm  of  a  classical  scholar,  "  Where 
is  the  passage  in  the  '  Timseus  '  ?  I  will  read  it  be- 
fore I  sleep."  A  score  of  books  (see  "  Atlantis  ;  or, 
thfe  Antediluvian  World,"  by  Ignatius  Donelly,  a 
volume  valuable  chiefly  for  its  references)  have  lately 
appeared,  defending  the  Atlantidean  theory  of  the 
origin  of  that  mysterious  semi  -  civilization  which 
founded  the  cities  of  which  the  ruins  remain  to  as- 
tonish us  in  Central  America.  Perhaps  the  unknown 
mound  -  builders  of  the  Mississippi  Valley  were  de- 
generate representatives  of  a  forgotten  Aztec  race, 
originating  in  a  lost  Atlantis. 

Probabl}^  the  Atlantidean  theory  has  been  sup- 
ported so  effectually  by  the  discoveries  of  the  ship 
Challenger  that  when  put  forward  only  as  a  theory 
it  will  never  be  quite  laughed  at  again.  The  ship 
Challenger  has  assured  the  world  that  a  submerged 
continental  island  lies  underneath  the  middle  Atlan- 
tic. Strangely  close  resemblances  are  found  to  exist 
between  the  plant  and  animal  life  of  the  Azores  and 
of  the  nearest  coasts  of  Brazil.  One  speculation  is 
that  this  mighty  island  went  down  when  the  windows 
of  heaven  were  opened  and  the  fountains  of  the  great 
deep  were  broken  up,  in  the  time  of  the  Deluge,  and 
that  the  representative  of  the  race,  Noah,  being  car- 
ried with  his  family  in  the  ark  away  from  the  scene 


30  OCCIDENT. 

of  ruin,  began  the  peopling  of  the  valley  of  the  Eu- 
phrates. The  zone  of  fracture  in  the  earth,  the  tra- 
ditions of  many  nations  as  to  the  Deluge,  point,  it 
is  claimed,  to  the  sinking  of  Atlantis.  I  do  not  in- 
dorse this  speculation  by  any  means ;  but  you  are 
crossing  the  Atlantic,  and  it  is  necessary  that  you 
should  be  not  merely  not  sea-sick,  but  not  sick  of 
the  sea.  You  are  beginning  a  tour  around  the  world, 
and  must  beware  of  narrowing  your  outlook  over  the 
past.  I  would  have  your  historic  vistas  go  back,  not 
to  Greece  and  Rome  merely,  not  to  the  Nile  and  the 
Ganges  and  no  farther,  not  to  those  mysterious  early 
seats  of  the  Aryan  population  on  the  slopes  between 
the  Himalayas  and  the  Caspian,  without  question  as 
to  what  was  the  yet  earlier  home  of  the  foremost 
portion  of  the  human  race.  I  would  have  the  vistas 
of  your  retrospect  go  back  to  the  unknown  origin  of 
the  Egyptian  and  Aryan  civilization.  Somewhere 
man  must  have  been  developed  through  ages  into 
the  use  of  lofty  standards  in  most  matters  before 
the  Egyptian  civilization  could  have  sprung  forth. 
It  is  certainly  not  incredible  at  all  that  Orient 
and  Occident  had  their  mother  in  the  lost  Atlantis. 
England  is  the  mother  of  America;  Germany  and 
Scandinavia  at  large  are  the  mother  of  England ; 
Asia  Minor  is  the  mother  of  Germany ;  the  Assj^rian 
slope,  between  the  Himalayas  and  the  Caspian,  is 
the  mother  of  Asia  Minor,  and,  in  some  sense,  of 
Greece  and  Italy ;  but  the  mother  of  that  slope  and 
of  Egypt  is,  possibly,  Atlantis.  The  mother  of  At- 
lantis is  Almighty  Providence.  Here,  then,  at  the 
very  outset  of  the  voyage,  we  put  a  girdle  around 


ADVANCED  THOUGHT  IN  ENGLAND.      31 

the  earth,  and  begin  to  perceive  that  all  men  are  of 
one  blood,  as  far  east,  at  least,  as  Calcutta. 

In  response  to  invitation  sent  to  you  before  leav- 
ing America,  you  give  courses  of  lectures  under  most 
fortunate  circumstances  in  London,  Edinburgh,  Glas- 
gow, Birmingham,  Manchester,  Dublin,  Belfast.  You 
make,  in  the  course  of  nine  months,  some  one  hun- 
dred and  thirty-five  public  appearances  in  the  Brit- 
ish Islands.  Nine  out  of  ten  of  your  audiences  are 
a  great  surprise  to  you  in  point  of  their  quantity  as 
well  as  of  their  quality.  You  venture  to  hope  that 
perhaps  you  are  not  entirely  throwing  away  your 
life,  for  conscienceless  cormorants  among  the  pub- 
lishers of  London  scatter  thirteen  different  editions 
of  your  books  around  your  path.  Your  chief  useful- 
ness is  in  harrowing  in  this  spiritual  seed.  It  is  not 
scattered  by  any  agency  or  hint  of  yours.  You  have 
not  the  slightest  financial  interest  in  the  speculations 
of  the  London  publishing  thieves.  Nevertheless,  on 
the  whole,  you  are  grateful  to  them  for  giving  you 
an  opportunity  to  be  heard  through  the  printed  page, 
as  well  as  by  the  voice.  Your  experience  in  this 
particular  continues  the  same  in  Bombay,  Calcutta, 
and  Madras,  and  even  in  Shanghai  and  Yokohama. 
Under  the  Southern  Cross,  especially  in  Sydney, 
Melbourne,  and  Adelaide,  the  most  brilliant  group 
of  cities  in  the  Southern  Hemisphere,  you  find  this 
sprinkled  coating,  —  for  no  other  word  will  ade- 
quately describe  the  result  of  the  activity  of  the  cor- 
morants, —  this  covering  of  the  furrowed  earth  with 
seed  of  unauthorized  editions  of  your  books,  continu- 
ing to  be  a  part  of  your  outlook  and  the  chief  source 


82  OCCIDENT. 

of  your  usefulness.  You  authorize  a  complete  edi- 
tion by  a  most  reputable  London  publisher,  but  no 
protection  can  be  had  for  it  in  the  present  state  of 
international  law  as  to  copyright,  and  it  is  probably 
outsold  by  the  unauthorized  copies.  Your  discus- 
sions in  Boston  are  followed  by  the  efforts  of  distin- 
guished men.  The  book  which  comes  before  the 
world  as  the  result  of  their  course  of  lectures  in  the 
Boston  Monday  Lectureship  goes  around  the  world. 
You  are  absent  from  a  certain  platform,  but  the  men 
who  occupy  it  while  you  are  gone  are  heard  to  the 
ends  of  the  earth,  and  you  buy  under  the  Southern 
Cross  English  editions  of  their  lectures.  ''A  Calm 
View  of  Temperance,"  by  a  university  chancellor, 
turns  out  to  be  a  calm  before  a  storm.  You  read 
the  reply  of  the  prince  of  all  living  orators,  Mr.  Phil- 
lips, —  God  bless  him  !  —  and  this  answer,  printed 
in  the  English  editions,  side  by  side  with  the  Calm 
View,  swallows  it  as  the  rod  of  Moses  swallowed 
the  rods  of  the  magicians. 

Your  object  abroad  is  not  so  much  to  visit  places 
as  men.  Your  main  purpose  is  to  find  out  what  ad- 
vanced thought  really  is  in  the  different  nations  you 
study.  You  are  most  interested  in  their  religious 
and  intellectual  condition,  their  philosophical  ten- 
dencies, their  gradual  approach  to  the  Divine  Hand 
from  which  must  come  the  spark  that  is  to  unify 
humanity. 

How  are  you  to  ascertain  what  advanced  thought 
is  in  any  nation  ?     Usually  in  five  ways :  — 

1.  By  approaching,  if  possible,  without  questions, 
closely  enough  to  the  real  leaders  of  thought  to  hear 


ADVANCED   THOUGHT  IN   ENGLAND.  33 

their  heartbeats;  to  examine,  in  some  sense,  their 
spiritual  pulses ;  and  to  ascertain  on  what  they  se- 
cretly depend  most  in  philosophy  and  faith,  in  life 
and  at  death. 

2.  By  putting  copious  lists  of  incisive  and  com- 
prehensive questions  to  both  progressive  and  con- 
servative leaders  on  strategic  points,  and  recording 
and  comparing  the  answers. 

3.  By  studying  the  unforced  tendencies  of  edu- 
cated young  men. 

4.  By  applying  these  tests  in  many  different  circles 
of  opposite  opinions. 

5.  By  a  careful  estimate  of  the  amount  that  en- 
lightened men  are  willing  to  sacrifice  in  time,  toil, 
money,  and  reputation  for  the  defence  of  their  opin- 
ions. 

In  regard  to  each  of  ten  departments  in  the  life 
of  every  nation  which  you  visit  on  your  tour  of  the 
world,  you  put  five  questions :  — 

1.  What  are  the  demands  of  its  advanced  thought 
in  religion,  philanthropic  reform,  politics,  education, 
philosophy,  literature,  science,  art,  industry,  and  so- 
cial life? 

2.  What  are  the  hindrances  to  the  progress  of  its 
advanced  thought  ? 

3.  What  would  be  the  future  development  of  the 
nation  if  its  advanced  thought  were  followed  in  its 
own  practice  ? 

4.  What  points  in  its  advanced  thought  or  action 
are  worthy  of  imitation  in  other  nations  ? 

5.  What  changes  in  each  nation's  character  and 
development  would  probably  result  from  the  fusion 


84  OCCIDENT. 

of  its  own  best  thought  m  each  of  the  ten  depart- 
ments with  the  best  of  other  nations  ? 

Of  all  these  questions  perhaps  the  most  interesting 
to  the  speculative  student  is  the  last,  but  the  answer 
to  it  must  depend  on  the  utmost  accuracy  and  defi- 
niteness  in  the  replies  to  the  others.  A  full  account 
of  what  one  sees  and  thinks  and  feels  in  a  tour  of 
the  world  would  include  detailed  and  vivid  answers 
to  all  these  fifty  questions.  It  would  embrace  eager 
studies  of  the  geography  and  history  of  every  land  ; 
the  inheritance,  achievement,  and  native  endowment 
of  every  people  ;  and  of  every  prominent  public  man, 
whether  now  alive  or  yet  influential  as  a  historic  spirit 
brooding  above  the  scene  of  his  earthly  labors. 

Only  glimpses  of  a  few  of  these  fascinating  topics 
can  be  given  within  the  narrow  bounds  of  one 
course  of  lectures.  On  the  land  and  on  the  sea  your 
thoughts  are  full  of  these  inquiries,  but  only  frag- 
ments of  the  answers  to  them  can  be  presented  here 
and  now.  You  go  armed  with  long  lists  of  questions 
as  lawfully  audacious  and  searching  as  you  can  pos- 
sibly make  them  ;  and  you  put  them  right  and  left, 
sometimes  in  company  and  sometimes  to  individ- 
uals. Johnson  said  a  traveller  brings  home  what  he 
carries ;  but  it  should  be  added  that,  if  the  traveller 
carries  questions  enough,  he  may  bring  home  im- 
mensely more  than  the  questions. 

Applying  these  tests,  what  do  you  find  to  be  some 
of  the  most  suggestive  traits  of  English  and  Scottish 
advanced  thought  ? 

1.  Unflinching  demand  for  the  application  of  the 
scientific  method,  that  is,  of  definition  and  induction, 
to  all  subjects,  however  sacred. 


ADVANCED   THOUGHT   IN  ENGLAND.  35 

If  there  be  one  thing  written  on  the  face  of  our 
age  more  clearly  than  any  other,  it  is  that  all  topics 
must  be  submitted  to  a  most  thorough  scientific 
examination,  whether  we  make  new  departures  or 
adhere  to  old  ideas.  We  must  revere  the  scientific 
spirit,  whether  it  be  radical  or  conservative  in  its 
outcome.  You  cannot  live  in  England  a  week,  in  the 
more  cultured  circles,  without  feeling  that  you  are  a 
ninny  and  a  fool,  if  you  do  not  believe  in  the  sci- 
entific method  in  its  application  to  the  most  sacred 
doctrines  of  religion  and  philosophy  and  art,  as  well 
as  to  politics  and  social  science.  Clear  ideas  at  any 
cost !  This  is  the  universal  watchword  of  the  Occi- 
dent. Let  us  observe,  let  us  define,  let  us  draw  in- 
ductive conclusions. 

2.  British  advanced  thought  believes  in  the  frontal 
more  than  in  the  coronal  eye  of  the  soul ;  that  is,  in 
logical  and  Aristotelian  more  than  in  spiritual  and 
Platonic  methods  of  searching  for  truth. 

This  is  a  defect  of  the  English  mind  and  of  the 
American.  When  you  reach  India,  in  your  tour  of 
the  globe,  you  will  find  people  who  believe  in  their 
coronal  eye ;  who  see  God  in  an  intuitive  way,  as 
Emerson  did.  There  is  very  little  of  this  in  Eng- 
land, there  is  very  little  in  Scotland ;  but  I  think 
there  is  more  north  of  the  Tweed  than  south  of  it. 
The  Scotch  have  a  window  in  the  dome  of  their 
souls  ;  but  they  have  such  an  immense  front  window 
that  they  are  chiefly  occupied  in  gazing  out  of  it. 
Rarely,  except  in  periods  of  mighty  religious  fer- 
vor, do  Occidentals  look  steadily  and  intently  aloft 
through  the  dome  of  the  soul.     They  have  occasion- 


6b  OCCIDENT. 

ally  thus  looked  aloft  to  immense  purpose  in  British 
religions  history;  but,  in  general,  Scotchmen,  Eng- 
lishmen, and  Americans  believe  in  experience,  ob- 
servation, definition,  induction,  the  scientific  method, 
and  nothing  else.  It  is  a  gross  but  nearly  uncon- 
fessed  deficiency  of  Occidental  advanced  thought, 
that  it  studies  the  Universe  almost  exclusively 
through  the  frontal  and  hardly  at  all  through  the 
dome-window  in  the  cathedral  of  the  spirit.  Only 
clear  ideas  and  spiritual  purposes  united  can  lead  us 
into  safe  opinions. 

3.  It  is  a  characteristic  of  the  more  cultured  cir- 
cles in  England,  and  especially  in  Scotland,  to  rid- 
icule the  vagueness,  evasiveness,  slatternliness,  and 
untenableness  of  materialistic  and  agnostic  definitions 
of  matter  and  life. 

A  distant  and  careless  study  of  advanced  thought 
in  Great  Britain  ma}^  increase,  but  a  close  and  care- 
ful study  of  it  is  sure  to  diminish,  your  respect  for 
agnosticism  and  materialism.  England,  you  think, 
is  the  home  of  agnosticism.  So  it  is.  The  chief  de- 
fenders of  materialism  are  in  Great  Britain.  But  I 
am  profoundly  convinced,  after  conversations  w^ith 
many  leaders  of  philosophical  thought  in  University 
centres  and  elsewhere  in  the  British  Islands,  that 
really  advanced  thinking  in  England  is  fundamen- 
tally anti  -  materialistic,  anti  -  agnostic,  and  so  really 
anti-Spencerian.  You  are  sitting  one  day  in  Edin- 
burgh, with  a  company  of  learned  men,  at  table  at 
dinner,  and  one  of  them  affirms  that  Herbert  Spen- 
cer cannot  read  German.  You  think  this  must  be 
a  mistake,  and  turn   to  Professor  Calderwood,  and 


ADVANCED  THOUGHT  IN  ENGLAND.      37 

inquire,  "Is  it  true  ?  That  is  a  strange  assertion." 
"  I  have  always  understood  it  to  be  the  truth."  You 
ask  the  views  of  the  whole  company,  and  find  that 
not  a  man  doubts  the  statement.  Agnosticism,  as 
represented  by  Spencer,  has  a  very  poor  following 
north  of  the  Tweed.  You  are  in  the  study  of  Lionel 
Beale,  one  day,  in  London,  Herbert  Spencer's  home, 
and  he  says,  "That  man's  books  contain  so  much 
false  physiology  that  they  will  not  be  read  ten  years 
after  his  death,  except  as  literary  curiosities."  And 
Lionel  Beale  is  supposed  to  know  something  of  phys- 
iology. You  are  afterward  in  Germany,  and  you 
find  that  Herbert  Spencer  is  regarded  as  a  bright 
man,  indeed,  but  by  no  means  as  a  leader  of  modern 
philosophical  thought.  Li  short,  as  compared  with 
Herman  Lotze,  you  hear  Herbert  Spencer  called  a 
charlatan.  It  pains  you  not  a  little  to  find  that  your 
own  country  has  large  circles  that  follow  him  so 
loyally.  It  pains  you  to  find  that  there  is  a  Brit- 
ish materialistic  school.  You  happen  to  express  this 
view  in  company  to  professors  of  Edinburgh  and 
Glasgow,  and  one  of  them  turns  upon  you  somewhat 
sternly,  and  says,  "  There  is  no  British  materialis- 
tic school.  Britain  includes  Scotland  and  England. 
There  is  no  Scotch  materialistic  school.  There  is 
no  English  materialistic  school.  If  there  is  any  ma- 
terialistic school  in  these  islands,  it  is  a  London  and 
a  Cockney  materialistic  school."  This  is  Professor 
Tait,  of  Edinburgh.  You  hear  the  same  sentiment 
expressed  by  Professor  Veitch,  of  Glasgow,  the  biog- 
rapher of  Sir  William  Hamilton.  But  there  is  an 
Alexander  Bain  in  Scotland,  who  defines  matter,  in 


38  OCCIDENT. 

the  agnostic  Spencerian  way,  as  a  "  double  -  faced 
somewhat,  physical  on  one  side  and  spiritual  on  the 
other."  You  ask  Lionel  Beale  what  he  thinks  of 
this  definition,  and  he  says,  "  It  is  obvious  nonsense." 
You  quote  that  opinion  to  Professor  Veitch,  and  Pro- 
fessor Tait,  and  to  a  dozen  others  whom  I  will  not 
have  the  pedantry  to  name,  and  you  find  them  all 
repudiating  this  central  key -stone  of  modern  ma- 
terialistic theories.  Herbert  Spencer  is  not  spoken 
of  with  profound  intellectual  respect  in  the  circles  of 
the  most  advanced  thought  in  Scotland,  England, 
and  Germany.  Do  not  misunderstand  me.  This 
man  has  immense  influence  abroad.  His  scheme  of 
thought  is  applied  to  all  classes  of  subjects  by  a  cer- 
tain arrogant  and  noisy  school  of  writers.  But  I  am 
distinguishing  between  thought  advanced  enough  to 
be  really  first  class  and  that  which  is  not  more  than 
third  or  fourth  or  fifth  class. 

4.  The  conviction  that  we  must  upset  natural  law, 
and  teach  not  that  the  universe  is  governed  by  law, 
but  only  that  it  is  governed  according  to  law,  is  one 
of  tlie  profoundest  scientific  inspirations  which  Brit- 
ish advanced  thought  offers  to  a  lofty  life. 

You  are  conversing  with  Lionel  Beale  in  the  man- 
ner once  common  in  the  days  of  George  Combe,  and 
not  yet  outgrown.  "  Is  it  not  fortunate,"  you  say, 
"  that  this  age  knows  so  much  of  natural  law  ? 
Ought  we  not  to  congratulate  ourselves  that  human- 
ity is  coming  to  some  real  knowledge  of  the  natu- 
ral laws  of  the  universe  and  to  a  certain  loyalty  to 
them  ?  "  "  Yes,"  answers  this  great  physiologist  ; 
"  but  what  we  need  most  now  is  somebody  to  upset 


ADVANCED  THOUGHT  IN  ENGLAND.  39 

natural  law."  As  Herman  Lotze,  Sir  William  Ham- 
ilton, Clerk  Maxwell,  Dr.  Carpenter,  and  a  score  of 
others  possessing  intellectual  authority,  have  taught 
us,  we  have  no  right  to  say  that  the  Universe  is  gov- 
erned by  natural  laws,  but  only  that  it  is  governed 
according  to  natural  laws.  Natural  law,  without 
God's  will  behind  it,  is  no  more  than  a  glove  without 
a  hand  in  it.  Natural  law  is  a  process,  not  a  power ; 
a  method  of  operation,  not  an  operator.  God  is  om- 
nipresent in  all  natural  forces,  and,  as  matter  cannot 
move  itself,  all  force  must  originate  outside  of  mat- 
ter, —  that  is,  from  an  omnipresent,  infinite  Will. 

5.  Advanced  thought  in  England  insists  on  what 
Carlyle  calls  natural  supernaturalism. 

I  was  amazed  to  find  so  little  religious  disturbance 
in  British  higher  circles  by  agnosticism  and  materi- 
alism. Carlyle  represents  really  advanced  thought 
in  this  matter.  I  admit  there  is  enough  of  the  lit- 
erature of  agnosticism  abroad ;  but,  as  an  editor  of 
a  famous  London  review  said,  not  long  since,  the 
articles  the  agnostics  publish  are  more  in  the  style 
of  military  ostentation  than  of  earnest  battle.  The 
agnostics  and  the  materialists  keep  their  forces  be- 
hind the  hill  of  London  journalism,  and  march  them 
around  and  around  the  hill ;  and  you  think  there  is 
an  immense  army  of  them,  for  you  never  see  the 
end.  Many  of  our  young  editors  here,  a  great  num- 
ber of  smatterers  in  philosophy  among  literary  men, 
and  not  a  few  graduates  of  our  universities  who  have 
not  mastered  philosophy,  think  that  the  chief  sign  of 
the  times  is  the  marching  of  this  little  army  around 
the  top  of  the  London  height.     It  is  visible  to  the 


40  OCCIDENT. 

eyes  of  tlie  young  Beiigalese,  of  tlie  young  Japan- 
ese, of  tlie  young  Chinese,  of  the  young  Australa- 
sian, and  they  far  too  often  think  this  marching  is 
the  mighty  tramp  of  modern  progress. 

You  go  to  London,  you  enter  university  circles, 
you  come  into  contact  with  men  like  Clerk  Maxwell, 
whose  "  Life  "  I  hold  in  my  hand,  and  which  has 
just  dropped  from  the  press,  and  you  find  that  this 
vaunted  philosophy,  this  agnosticism,  this  semi-ma- 
terialistic and  often  practically  atheistic  speculation, 
is  really  not  controlling  the  most  advanced  thought 
of  the  British  Islands,  and  especially  not  the  most 
advanced  thought  of  Germany.  Haeckel  is  one  of 
the  most  ridiculed  of  the  learned  men  in  Germany, 
simply  because  he  is  the  defender  of  philosophi- 
cal materialism.  Clerk  Maxwell  dies  when  you  are 
in  London.  Who  is  he?  Let  Helmholtz  tell  you. 
Who  is  Helmholtz  ?  Probably  the  foremost  physi- 
cist in  Germany.  You  have  a  conversation  with  him, 
months  later,  while  in  Germany,  and  he  exj)resses 
his  general  accord  with  Lotze's  principles,  and  his 
anxiety  that  the  successor  of  Lotze  should  teach  the 
anti-materialistic  Lotzian  philosophy.  Helmholtz 
goes  to  London  to  deliver  a  eulogy  of  Clerk  Max- 
well. The  elite  of  the  British  scientific  world  listen 
to  the  address.  Clerk  Maxwell  was  as  devout  a 
Christian  as  ever  lay  on  a  death-bed :.  a  man  equipped 
with  a  mathematical  knowledge  which  a  Huxley  and 
a  Tyndall  do  not  possess ;  a  man  discussing  the  old 
and  the  new  atomic  theory,  crystallization,  the  ori- 
gin of  life,  and  other  similar  topics  that  lie  on  the 
border-land  between  religion  and  science,  from  the 


ADVANCED  THOUGHT  IN  ENGLAND.      41 

point  of  view  of  the  most  exact  research,  and  utterly 
repudiating  agnosticism  and  accepting  the  supernat- 
ural. He  is  eulogized  by  Helmholtz  for  his  scientific 
knowledge,  and  placed  on  the  pinnacle  of  scientific 
fame.  His  unflinching  theism  is  regarded  as  one  of 
his  greatest  claims  to  scientific  respect. 

You  are  in  England  when  George  Eliot  is  buried. 
There  is  a  sermon  delivered  over  her  grave  asserting 
the  immortality  of  the  soul. 

You  are  in  England  when  Thomas  Carlyle  passes 
into  the  world  into  which  all  men  haste.  You  stand 
at  his  grave  at  Ecclefechan  ;  you  visit  his  lonely 
home  at  Craigenputtock ;  you  fill  your  soul  with 
what  he  called  natural  supernaturalism.  That  doc- 
trine moves  you  as  a  scientific  certainty,  and  you 
find  that  the  more  closely  you  clasp  it  to  your  bosom 
the  more  heartily  are  you  in  accord  with  the  most 
advanced  thought  of  the  British  Islands  at  this  hour. 
(See  "  Sartor  Resartus,"  chapter  entitled  "  Natural 
S  uper  naturalism . "  ) 

6.  In  its  most  brilliant  portions,  advanced  thought 
in  England  is  substantially  a  unit  in  the  support  of 
Christian  theism,  or  ethical  supernaturalism. 

Fichte  wrote  in  his  maturity,  "  Every  man  must 
die  to  sin  and  lead  a  new  life,  and  this  must  be  done 
as  the  act  of  his  own  moral  freedom  ;  yet  it  can  be 
done  only  by  looking  for  aid  to  Christ,  the  source  of 
a  new  life.  Through  Him  must  enter  all  who  ever 
come  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven."  (See  ''  German 
Culture  and  Christianity,"  by  Joseph  Gostwick, 
London,  1882,  p.  203.)  Natural  supernaturalism  is 
not  Christianity.     Carlyle  was  a  pupil  of  Fichte,  but 


42  OCCIDENT. 

he  followed  Fichte  only  half-way.  In  his  maturest 
period,  Fichte  taught  that  the  Gospel  of  John  is  the 
profoundest  philosophy  known  to  man.  Carlyle  never 
reached  that  height,  I  fear.  Son  of  the  Scotch  Cov- 
enanters, Carlyle  followed  Fichte  as  much  as  he  was 
capable  of  following  any  one,  until  he  was  not  a  little 
misled  by  Goethe.  It  is  not  fair  to  call  him  an  oppo- 
nent of  Christianity.  I  found  that  scores  among  those 
who  knew  him  best  appreciated  the  Christian  side  of 
his  character  much  more  thoroughly  than  his  rational- 
istic biographer,  Mr.  Froude,  does.  His  best  friends 
in  Edinburgh  call  him  substantially  Christian.  I 
have  heard  Mr.  Spurgeon  say,  "  Thomas  Carlyle  was 
a  good  Old  Testament  Christian.  I  wish  he  had 
been  a  better  New  Testament  one ;  but  in  this  age 
we  need  a  larger  number  of  Old  Testament  Chris- 
tians." Natural  supernaturalism,  ethical  supernat- 
uralism,  God  in  nature,  God  in  conscience,  you 
find  among  the  doctrines  held  by  English  advanced 
thought,  in  the  name  of  the  scientific  method.  With 
Carlyle  these  doctrines  were  not  a  creed  only,  but  a 
life. 

Blessed  are  your  memories  of  your  eager  visits 
to  tidy  but  poor  Ecclefechan,  and  to  lonely  but  sub- 
lime Craigenputtock.  Carlyle's  letters  to  his  mother 
are  the  best  revelation  of  his  religious  life.  He  wrote 
to  his  mother  again  and  again  that  fundamentally 
their  views  in  religion  were  not  only  in  general  har- 
mony, but  "  completely  the  same."  Carlyle  was  hyp- 
ocritical in  these  assurances  to  a  parent  whom  he 
idolized,  if  he  was,  as  Froude  would  have  the  world 
believe,  a  thorough-going  skeptic  as  to  the  biblical 


ADVANCED  THOUGHT  IN  ENGLAND.      43 

miracles.  After  his  father's  death,  Carlyle  urged  his 
brothers  to  keep  up  family  worship  in  his  mother's 
house  and  their  own.  This  was  far  from  honest  or 
earnest  action  if  Carlyle  was  an  anti-supernaturalist. 
His  greatest  doctrine  was  natural  supernaturalism, 
or  the  Divine  Omnipresence  in  all  the  natural  laws 
of  both  matter  and  mind.  This  was  the  open  secret 
which  made  the  universe  to  him  a  Burning  Bush,  and 
every  commonest  path  of  life  holy  ground.  I  care 
little  for  Carlyle's  political  doctrines,  which  Froude 
thinks  were  his  chief  message  to  men.  Carlyle  him- 
self says  that  his  great  message  was  natural  super- 
naturalism.  Nowhere  in  his  authorized  publications 
has  he  opposed  biblical  supernaturalism.  If  he  op- 
posed this  in  private,  he  took  great  pains  to  conceal 
his  convictions  not  only  from  his  mother,  but  also 
from  his  contemporaries  and  posterity.  If  he  held 
the  superficial  views  which  Froude  attributes  to  him 
as  to  the  origin  of  Christianity,  he  never  supported 
them  by  any  reasons  that  would  bear  an  instant's 
examination  in  face  of  the  great  scholars  in  Ger- 
many, England,  and  America,  who  have  answered 
and  buried  the  mythical  theory  of  Strauss  and  the 
legendary  of  Renan.  It  was  very  unfortunate  that 
when  Carlyle  was  in  the  University  at  Edinburgh 
no  powerful  mind  was  at  the  front  there  in  either  the 
domain  of  philosophy  or  in  that  of  theology.  There 
is  little  or  no  evidence  that  Carlyle  ever  mastered 
the  higher  forms  of  thought  in  these  departments. 
It  would  not  be  surprising  if  the  truth  should  turn 
out  to  be  that  beyond  a  mystical,  spiritualistic,  and 
perhaps  one  may  say  a  Christian  theism,  his  views 


44  OCCIDENT. 

were  characterized  by  uncertainty  and  obscurity,  if 
not  confusion.  The  writings  he  has  published  do 
not  show  that  his  convictions  had  hardened  into  those 
of  anti  -  supernaturalistic  rationalism.  If  they  had 
done  so,  he  was  evasive,  cowardly,  and  hypocritical 
in  not  professing  before  the  world  his  true  position. 
It  cannot  be  made  clear  that  Carlyle  was  evasive, 
or  cowardly,  or  hypocritical,  in  this  or  in  any  other 
matter. 

Carlyle's  character  seems  never  to  have  quite 
reached  that  overawing  spiritual  maturity  which  ap- 
peared, with  some  blemishes,  in  Milton  and  Crom- 
well, Knox  and  Luther,  whom  he  has  himseK  eulo- 
gized as  among  the  greatest  of  modern  men,  and 
whose  natures  were  as  strong  and  stormy  as  his  own. 
Goethe  was,  unfortunately,  at  first,  Carlyle's  evan- 
gelist ;  and  yet  Goethe,  in  his  old  age,  cannot  be  de- 
scribed as  an  anti-super  naturalist.  Philosophy  and 
theology  have  passed  beyond  Goethe ;  but  Carlyle 
hardly  passed  beyond  him,  and  so  the  ages  will  in- 
evitably in  many  things  leave  Carlyle  behind.  A 
scientific  ethical  supernaturalism  is  or  will  yet  be 
beyond  them  both.  The  characters  which  Goethe 
and  Carlyle  achieved,  or  inculcated,  are  neither  as 
beautiful  nor  as  sublime  as  those  which  are  in  har- 
mony with  distinctively  Christian  ideals. 

7.  Historical  supernaturalism,  or  a  scientific  treat- 
ment of  the  origin  of  Christianity,  with  enlarged 
attention  to  biblical  criticism  in  all  its  branches, 
is  a  foremost  part  of  British  advanced  thought. 

8.  The  study  of  comparative  religion,  especially 
of  the   least  corrupt   of   the    Oriental   faiths,  with 


ADVANCED  THOUGHT  IN  ENGLAND.  45 

their  literature  of  all  kinds,  is  pursued  with  enthusi- 
asm by  advanced  thought  in  the  British  University- 
centres. 

9.  The  might  of  biblical  preaching  in  the  best 
Scottish  and  English  pulpits,  the  superb  vigor  of  the 
greatest  of  the  London  churches,  like  Mr.  Spurgeon's, 
Dr.  Allon's,  Dr.  Parker's,  Dr.  Dyke's,  and  the  im- 
mense audiences  of  Westminster  Abbey  and  St. 
Paul's,  are  exhibitions  of  British  advanced  thought 
in  forms  at  once  conservative  and  progressive. 

10.  In  British  religious  and  ecclesiastical  affairs, 
advanced  thought  plainly  tends  toward  the  complete 
separation  of  church  and  state,  and  a  growing  union 
of  all  churches  of  scholarly  and  aggressive  faith. 

11.  A  profound  interest  in  missions  throughout  the 
whole  earth  is  characteristic  of  the  ripest  religious 
thought  in  the  foremost  Christian  empire  of  the 
world. 

12.  A  growing  zeal  for  international  reform,  or 
the  application  of  the  moral  law  to  the  conduct  of 
people  toward  people,  and  to  the  reformation  of  the 
whole  world,  is  a  trait  of  advanced  political  thought 
in  Great  Britain.  Mr.  Bright  lately  resigned  his 
place  in  a  haughty  British  cabinet  because  the  moral 
law,  as  he  thought,  was  not  followed  in  England's 
conduct  toward  Egypt. 

Whatever  is  heard  in  the  lowlands  and  the  marshes 
of  English  life,  these  and  others  like  them  are  the 
footsteps,  the  heavy  fall  of  which  you  hear  every 
time  you  ascend  to  tlie  sunlit  heights  where  advanced 
thought  in  the  British  Islands  loves  to  pace  to  and 
fro. 


46  OCCIDENT. 

Among  obstacles  to  the  practical  application  and 
the  progress  of  British  advanced  thought,  you  can- 
not fail  to  notice,  — 

1.  An  insufficient  degree  of  thoroughness  in  theo- 
logical education  in  the  Established  Church  and  in 
non-conformist  bodies  generally  in  England. 

2.  Reverence  for  artificial  rather  than  for  natural 
rank. 

3.  The  industrial  and  social  condition  of  large 
portions  of  the  operative  and  agricultural  classes. 

4.  Roman  Catholicism  in  Ireland. 

5.  The  connection  of  church  and  State. 

6.  Sectarian  rivalries  and  jealousies. 

7.  English  distaste  for  the  higher  departments  of 
metaphysics. 

8.  The  superficiality  of  organized  infidelity. 

9.  The  crowding  of  the  populations  of  great  cities. 

10.  The  failure  of  the  churches  to  reach  with  ad- 
equate religious  instruction  a  large  portion  of  the 
masses  in  the  lower  orders  of  society. 

On  the  Irish  Sea,  and  in  the  country-side  as  you 
pass  to  and  fro  between  Dublin  and  Belfast,  and 
among  the  factories  of  sooty  Birmingham,  Manches- 
ter, Leeds,  and  Sheffield,  as  well  as  in  the  parlors  of 
London,  you  reflect  silently  and  long,  but  here  and 
now  we  need  not  dwell,  on  these  vast  but  slowly 
vanishing  evils. 

Scotland  has  by  no  means  given  up  her  faith  in 
the  Old  Testament,  although  she  would  like  to  see 
it  examined  with  the  scalpel  and  microscope.  You 
converse  with  Robertson  Smith,  a  man  little  taller 
than  this  chair,  but  mighty,  — 


ADVANCED  THOUGHT  IN  ENGLAND.      47 

"If  I  could  reach  from  pole  to  pole, 
I  'd  yet  be  measured  by  my  soul;  " 

hardly  the  man,  however,  to  lead  the  Scotch  Free 
Church.  You  are  not  very  sorry,  if  your  opmions 
are  what  mine  are,  that  he  was  dropped  from  his  pro- 
fessor's chair  ;  but  you  would  be  pained  if  he  should 
cease  to  publish.  You  would  be  grieved  if  his  inves- 
tigations were  curbed  in  any  way.  He  is  a  distant 
and  yet  real  follower  of  Wellhausen  and  Kuenen ; 
but  these  men  are  not  regarded  in  Germany  as  by 
any  means  safe  leaders  of  the  most  advanced  Old 
Testament  criticism. 

Scotland  you  learn  to  love  passionately.  You  pace 
to  and  fro  in  the  Covenanters'  burial-ground;  you 
walk  over  the  fields  made  classic  by  Burns  and  Scott ; 
you  look  abroad  from  Scottish  heights  upon  many  a 
landscape  in  which  no  hill  rears  its  head  unsung. 
You  come  into  close  sympathy  with  her  reformers, 
her  orators,  her  poets,  her  statesmen.  You  find  the 
whole  heaven  of  the  inner  sky  in  Scotland  studded 
with  sacred  stars.  You  receive  an  inspiration  every 
time  you  touch  but  the  hem  of  the  garment  of  the 
most  heroic  portions  of  Scottish  religious  history. 
You  love  England;  and  when,  at  last,  you  bid  adieu 
to  the  British  Islands,  and  look  back  upon  them, 
what  figure  is  it  that  best  summarizes  the  advanced 
thought,  the  advanced  philanthropy,  the  loftiest  mood 
of  the  real  heart  of  the  leading  political  power  of 
the  world  ?  Mrs.  Browning,  Shakespeare's  daughter, 
—  I  think  of  her  as  the  best  symbol  of  the  choicest 
part  of  Britain.  In  her  grand  Christian  convictions, 
her  mighty  aspirations  for  progress,  her  love  of  the 


48  OCCIDENT. 

poor ;  lier  spiritual  tenderness,  born  of  Christianity  ; 
her  mental  aggressiveness,  born  of  science  ;  her  wom- 
anliness, —  I  had  almost  said  her  manliness,  —  I  will 
say  her  heroic  readiness  to  follow  God  whithersoever 
He  may  lead :  this  woman,  with  Tennyson  at  her  side, 
is  really  the  best  representative  I  can  name  of  what 
appears  to  me  to  be  the  innermost  heart  of  England 
and  Scotland. 


n. 

ADVANCED  THOUGHT  IN  GERMANY, 

WITH  A  PRELUDE  ON 

DOES  DEATH  END   PROBATION? 

THE   ONE    HUNDRED   AND    FIFTY-SECOND   LECTURE    IN    THE 
BOSTON   MONDAY    LECTURESHIP,    DELIVERED    IN 
TREMONT    TEMPLE,   JANUARY    15,    1883. 


"  "While  we  are  upon  earth,  let  us  repent.  For  we  are  as  clay  in  the 
hands  of  the  potter.  ...  As  long  as  we  are  in  this  world  we  may 
repent  with  our  whole  heart  of  the  evil  things  we  have  done  in  the 
flesh,  in  order  that  we  may  be  saved  by  the  Lord,  while  we  yet  have 
an  opportunity  of  repentance.  For  after  that  we  have  passed  out  of 
the  world,  we  shall  no  longer  have  it  in  our  power  to  confess  or  to 
repent."  —  Second  Epistle  of  Clemens  Romanus,  first  half  of 
second  century. 

"  This  passage  conclusively  proves  what  those  Christians  thought 
and  taught  on  the  subject  of  human  probation  and  the  doom  of  the 
ungodly,  who  lived  in  the  generation  immediately  succeeding  the 
Apostles,  and  when  there  were  probably  those  upon  earth  who  had 
seen  St.  John.  The  possible  refashioning  of  character  during  life, 
and  its  hopeless  condition  when  life  has  expired,  could  not  be  more 
forcibly  illustrated  than  by  the  image  of  the  potter's  vessel."  —  Dean 
GOULBUKN,  Lectures,  1880,  p.  34. 


"  Life,  love,  religion,  these  three  are  one.  Tell  me  what  you  love 
supremely,  and  I  will  tell  you  your  destiny.  Our  philosophy  and  our 
morality  must  lead  us  at  last  to  one  thought  —  the  idea  of  God."  — 
Fichte. 

"  After  forty  years  of  philosophical  scepticism,  eclecticism,  and 
chaos,  the  cry ;  '  Keturn  to  Kant,'  resounds  throughout  the  land.  .  .  . 
Hegel's  imperial  sway  is  at  an  end.  ...  Of  recent  philosophies,  that 
of  Lotze  has  most  points  of  contact  with  theology.  His  idealism 
serves  as  an  antidote  to  materialism ;  he  makes  the  ethical  element 
the  heart  of  his  system.  Like  Aristotle  he  cannot  think  of  the  uni- 
verse otherwise  than  as  controlled  by  reason,  and  therefore  as  em- 
bodying design  and  intended  to  accomplish  purpose.  .  .  .  Spencer's 
syntlietic  philosophy  seems  to  have  gained  little  influence  ;  it  is  too 
shallow  as  a  philosophy,  too  hasty  in  its  conclusions,  and  too  full  of 
contradictions  for  the  German  mind."  —  Professor  J.  H.  W.  Stuck- 
ENBERG,  Berlin. 


PRELUDE  n. 

DOES  DEATH  END   PEOBATION  ? 

Evil  steadfastness  of  character  is  as  much  a  fact 
as  holy  steadfastness.  Under  irreversible  natural 
law,  character,  without  loss  of  freedom,  tends  to  an 
ultimate  steadfastness,  final  permanence,  unchanging 
bent,  good  or  bad.  Probation  lasts  until  such  stead- 
fastness is  attained.  It  is  self-evident  that  ultimate 
steadfastness,  final  permanence,  or  unchanging  bent, 
can  be  attained  but  once.  There  is,  therefore,  no 
second  probation. 

However  awful  the  truth,  it  is  scientifically  known 
that  sinning  against  light  blinds  us  to  the  very  illu- 
mination needed  to  rectify  our  condition.  William 
Shakespeare,  through  one  of  his  characters,  exhorts 
a  certain  other  character  to  repentance;  but  seems 
to  doubt  whether  repentance  is  possible.  The  pas- 
sage is  not  partisan  authority,  but  it  shows  how  per- 
manent  unwillingness   to  repent   may  arise   under 

natural  law. 

"  Let  me  wring  your  heart,  .  .  . 
If  it  be  made  of  penetrable  stuff, 
If  cursed  custom  have  not  brazed  it  so 
That  it  is  proof  and  bulwark  against  sense." 

Hamlet,  Act  HI.,  Scene  IV. 

The  natural  laws  by  which  judicial  blindness  comes 
to  the  soul  are  God's  laws.     They  reveal  his  right- 


62  OCCIDENT. 

eous  judgment  here.  He  does  blind  all  who  sin 
against  light.  He  does  this  who  is  infinite  in  holi- 
ness and  tenderness. 

"  Repeated  sin  impairs  the  judgment. 

He  whose  judgment  is  impaired  sins  repeatedly." 

Bhagvat  Geeta. 

When  the  blinded  soul  drifts  into  permanent  dissim- 
ilarity of  feeling  with  God,  it  drifts  into  perdition. 
As  a  great  American  theologian  has  said,  "There 
is  as  much  proof  that  the  evil  will  persist  in  their 
choice  as  that  the  good  will  persist  in  theirs."  As 
Julius  Miiller  has  said,  "  Such  is  the  constitution  of 
things  that  unwillingness  to  goodness  may  ripen  into 
eternal  voluntary  opposition  to  it."  This  is  un- 
doubtedly one  of  the  most  terrible  truths  of  the  uni- 
verse ;  but  it  is  also  one  of  the  most  indisputable. 

Discussing  the  question,  Does  death  end  proba- 
tion? first  practically,  next  theoretically,  and  then 
exegetically,  I  am  to  maintain  three  propositions :  — 

1.  If  it  be  possible  that  death  may  end  probation, 
the  supreme  dictate  of  practical  wisdom  is  to  repent 
now. 

2.  Mere  reason  shows  that  death  may  end  pro- 
bation. 

3.  The  Scriptures  show  that  death  does  end  proba- 
tion. 

What  have  we  to  do,  as  practical  people,  with  the 
seductive  promise  that  those  who  do  not  have  a  fair 
chance  here  may,  possibly,  have  another  chance 
hereafter?  I  w^ant  a  fact,  not  a  hypothesis,  as  my 
support  in  the  dark  waters  which  separate  this  world 
from  the  next.     The  longer  we  live  in  the  love  of 


DOES  DEATH  END  PEOBATION  ?        63 

what  God  hates  and  in  the  hate  of  what  God  loves, 
the  longer  we  are  likely  to  do  so.  An  ultimate  stead- 
fastness of  character  may  no  doubt  be  sometimes 
reached  even  in  the  present  life.  My  conscience  dic- 
tates repentance  at  this  instant,  and  so  does  all  prac- 
tical wisdom.  If  we  are  not  sure  —  and  no  man  is 
sure  —  that  there  is  an  opportunity  after  death  for 
repentance,  and  sure  that  we  can  use  it  in  our  own 
cases  to  advantage,  it  remains  true  that  now  is  the 
accepted  time  and  now  the  day  of  salvation  for  us. 
So  obvious,  so  commonplace,  is  this  proposition  that 
the  very  sound  of  it  is  offensive,  perhaps;  never- 
theless, propositions  become  commonplace  by  being 
often  repeated  on  account  of  their  wisdom.  The 
commonplace,  in  this  matter,  is  the  supremely  philo- 
sophical proposition. 

Governor  Corwin,  of  Ohio,  once  met  a  negro,  who 
had  run  away  from  Kentucky,  and  was  living  in  rags 
in  the  free  state.  "  You  made  a  mistake  in  running 
away,"  said  the  Governor  to  the  black  man.  "You 
had  friends  and  clothes  and  money  enough  south  of 
the  Ohio,  as  I  happen  to  know ;  for  I  was  acquainted 
with  your  master.  Are  you  not  now  in  need  of  all 
these  things?"  "Yes,"  said  the  negro.  "Then," 
said  the  Governor,  "  you  made  a  mistake  in  running 
away."  "  Governor  Corwin,"  said  the  negro,  "  the 
situation  in  Kentucky  is  open,  with  all  its  advan- 
tages [laughter] ,  and  if  you  choose  to  go  and  occupy 
it  you  can  do  so."  [Laughter  and  applause.]  I 
turn  to  any  foremost  representative  of  the  doctrine 
that  there  is  an  opportunity  of  repentance  after 
death,  and  I  say.  The  situation  is  open,  with  all  its 


54  OCCIDENT. 

advantages;  do  you  propose  to  go  and  occupy  it? 
Not  you,  not  I,  in  our  senses.  Do  you  propose  to 
recommend  to  any  one  near  and  dear  to  you  that  he 
or  she  shall  go  and  occupy  this  opportunity,  with  all 
its  advantages  ?  Not  you,  not  I,  while  we  retain 
sound  minds.  Henry  Clay  was  once  taunted  by  Cal- 
houn in  the  American  Senate  with  defeat  in  debate. 
"I  had  him  on  his  back,"  said  Calhoun  of  the  Ken- 
tucky Senator.  "I  was  his  master."  Henry  Clay 
walked  down  the  aisle  of  the  Senate  Chamber,  and 
shook  his  long  forefinger  toward  Calhoun,  and  said, 
"  He  my  master  !  He  my  master  !  Sir,  I  would  not 
own  him  as  a  slave !  "  Looking  at  this  whole  mat- 
ter practically,  from  the  point  of  view  of  sound  com- 
mon sense,  I  say  to  any  advocate  of  the  doctrine  that 
there  is  opportunity  of  repentance  after  death,  "  He 
my  master  !  Neither  in  life  nor  in  death  would  I 
own  that  theory  or  any  one  of  its  defenders  as  a 
slave ! " 

Passing  now  swiftly  to  the  philosophical  consider- 
ation of  the  question.  Does  death  end  probation?  I 
summarize  my  views  in  a  series  of  propositions, 
which  might  easily  be  expanded  into  volumes. 

1.  Whatever  fixes  character  ends  probation. 

2.  By  fixation  of  character  is  meant  not  the  loss 
of  freedom  of  will,  but  its  acquisition  of  an  ultimate 
steadfastness  and  unchanging  bent. 

3.  Character  tends  to  ultimate  steadfastness,  good 
or  bad,  under  the  irreversible  natural  laws  of  the 
self-propagating  power  of  habit. 

4.  It  is  indisputable  that  sinning  against  light 
hardens  the  soul,  and  blinds  it  to  the  very  illumina- 
tion needed  to  rectify  its  condition. 


DOES  DEATH  END  PROBATION?        55 

5.  It  is  demonstrable,  therefore,  from  principles  of 
reason  that  character  will  once  and  but  once  attain 
a  final  permanence,  good  or  bad. 

6.  Reason  alone,  however,  does  not  decide  when 
and  where  this  final  permanence  is  reached. 

7.  Nevertheless,  reason  alone  makes  it  appear  pos- 
sible, and  in  many  cases  highly  probable,  that  a  final 
permanence  of  character  is  attained  and  probation 
closed  in  the  unspeakably  solemn  spiritual  experi- 
ences vdiich  usually  accompany  death. 

8.  In  death,  considered  merely  as  a  physical  change, 
there  is  nothing  to  effect  a  fixation  of  character ;  but 
in  death,  considered  as  an  event,  producing,  in  most 
cases,  an  almost  preternatural  arousal  of  conscience, 
and  sometimes  bringing  new  light  from  the  invisible 
world  and  requiring  a  decision  for  or  against  it,  there 
is  much  to  make  it  highly  probable  that  death,  or 
the  moral  choice  made  in  death,  determines  the  per- 
manent bent  of  the  soul. 

9.  All  moral  decisions  during  life  tend  to  fix  char- 
acter, and  some  great  moral  decisions  during  life  are 
crucial.  They  may  be  instantaneous ;  but  they  go 
so  far  toward  fixing  character  as  to  be  the  rudder  of 
the  soul's  whole  subsequent  career. 

10.  Death  in  average  cases  is  a  profound  spirit- 
ual experience,  and  involves  a  great  decision  for  or 
against  the  truths  it  emphasizes  and  reveals.  Under 
the  natural  laws  of  the  soul,  this  decision  may  be 
crucial,  and  become  the  rudder  of  all  eternity. 

11.  Death  is  the  separation  of  the  soul  from  the 
body. 

12.  Death  is  not  over  until  the  separation  of  the 


56  OCCIDENT. 

soul  from  the  body  is  complete.  Death  does  not  end 
■until  the  life  of  the  soul  completely  outside  the  body 
begins. 

13.  It  is  in  the  highest  degree  probable  to  reason, 
from  the  observed  experiences  of  the  dying,  that, 
however  torpid  body  and  mind  may  be  in  many  ap- 
proaches to  death,  the  soul,  in  the  very  article  of 
death,  is  often  awakened,  and  receives,  as  if  from  an 
invisible  world,  an  illumination  unknown  to  it  be- 
fore. 

14.  Even  in  sudden  deaths,  as  thousands  of  well- 
attested  experiences  show,  an  instant  may  be  enough 
to  bring  before  the  soul  the  record  of  its  whole  life, 
and  involve  moral  decisions  of  the  most  stupendous 
import.  It  is  notorious  that  this  is  the  experience 
of  the  drowning.  It  is  not  difficult  for  me  to  be- 
lieve that  heaven  or  hell  may  be  opened  in  the  soul 
simply  by  the  sudden,  complete,  and  vivid  unveiling 
of  its  records  to  its  own  eyes.  In  being  once  myself 
thrown  in  a  sleeping-coach  on  a  swift  railway  train 
twenty  feet  down  a  rocky  bank,  and  expecting  in- 
stant death,  I  found  between  the  brink  and  the  bot- 
tom my  whole  life  passing  before  me  in  panorama, 
and  the  chambers  of  memory  and  conscience  illu- 
minated, as  if  a  torch  had  suddenly  been  lighted  in- 
side of  the  brain. 

15.  But  it  is  not  to  be  presumed  that,  in  average 
cases,  the  separation  of  soul  and  body  is  instanta- 
neous. 

16.  Much  before  that  separation,  tvhether  rapid  or 
otherwise,  is  complete,  the  light  of  eternity  may  have 
dawned  upon  the  soul.     Whether  in  the  body  or  out 


DOES  DEATH  END  PROBATION?        57 

of  the  body,  God  knoweth,  Paul,  the  Apostle,  was 
caught  up  to  the  seventh  heaven,  and  heard  unspeak- 
able things  which  it  is  not  lawful  for  man  to  utter. 
The  soul,  before  it  is  separate  from  the  bod}^,  may 
very  probably  hear  unspeakable  things. 

17.  Accepting  or  rejecting  this  great  new  light 
ma,y  very  probably  fix  the  soul's  character  under 
natural  law.  If  the  soul  rejects  the  new  light  re- 
ceived in  death,  the  hardening  and  blinding  of  the 
soul  under  natural  law  may  be  such  as  to  be  final. 
Whoever  resists  the  great  new  light  which  comes  in 
death  commits  very  probably  the  unpardonable  sin, 
which  hath  forgiveness  neither  in  this  world  nor  in 
the  next.  Whoever  goes  through  death  with  his 
teeth  set  against  God  may  never  open  them. 

18.  Whoever  resists  the  light  received  in  death  is 
likely  to  resist  the  first  light  received  after  death ; 
and  so  moral  obduracy  in  death  may  become  final 
permanence  of  evil  character  after  death ;  and  thus, 
under  the  fixed  natural  laws  of  the  will,  death  may 
become  doom. 

19.  It  is  impossible  in  fairness  to  turn  these  prop- 
ositions about  and  use  them  as  an  encouragement 
for  a  death -bed  repentance.  Those  who  persist  in 
sin  until  the  last,  and  depend  on  the  seriousness  of 
death  and  the  light  it  emphasizes  or  reveals  to  con- 
vert them,  are  precisely  those  who  are  the  least  likely 
to  yield  to  light  and  experience  God's  mercy  at  the 
supreme  hour.  Postponed  obedience  is  disobedience 
and  tends  to  perpetuate  itself.  They  who  put  off 
repentance  until  death  are  the  most  in  danger  of 
postponing  it  forever. 


68  OCCIDENT. 

20.  In  those  who  have  all  their  lives  struggled 
toward  the  light,  the  seriousness  of  death  may  pro- 
duce moral  victory.  In  death  may  be  exhibited 
the  terrific  truth  of  the  words  that  "  to  him  who 
hath  shall  be  given  abundantly,  and  from  him 
who  hath  not  shall  be  taken  away  even  that  which 
he  hath." 

21.  In  infants  who  have  never  sinned,  the  light  of 
expanding  faculties  at  death  and  the  sight  of  Christ's 
face  may  lead  at  once  to  moral  harmony  with  Him. 

Pere  Ravignan,  in  language  before  me,  says  :  "  In 
the  soul,  at  the  last  moment  of  its  passage,  on  the 
threshold  of  eternity,  there  occur,  doubtless,  divine 
mysteries  of  justice,  but,  above  all,  of  mercy  and 
love."  Please  God,  it  may  be  so.  There  is  proba- 
tion in  life,  there  is  probation  in  death,  and  to  the 
very  end  of  death.  Dr.  Pusey,  replying  to  Canon 
Farrar,  says:  "What  God  does  for  the  soul,  when 
the  eye  is  turned  up  in  death  and  shrouded,  the 
frame  stiffened,  every  limb  motionless,  every  power 
of  expression  gone,  is  one  of  the  secrets  of  the  divine 
compassion." 

I  believe  in  a  physical  body,  a  spiritual  body,  and  a 
soul.  Death,  as  I  conceive  of  it,  is  not  disembodi- 
ment from  the  spiritual  organism.  There  are  forms 
of  death  which  possibly  may  separate  spirit  and  spir- 
itual body  from  the  physical  body  instantaneously  ; 
but  in  ordinary  death  I  believe  it  is  not  safe  to  as- 
sert that  this  is  the  case.  Death  is  not  over  and  pro- 
bation has  not  ceased  till  the  soul  is  separated  from 
the  body ;  and  the  mighty  light  which  comes  in  the 
last  and  highest  moment  of  spiritual  experience  be- 


DOES  DEATH  END  PROBATION?        59 

fore  death  ends  may  have  been  enough  to  bring 
many  a  man  who  gave  no  visible  sign  of  repentance 
into  loyalt}^  to  God.  I  hardly  dare  hope  this,  how- 
ever ;  for,  as  Canon  Farrar  himself  says,  "  There  is, 
in  all  the  Bible,  recorded  but  one  example  of  effect- 
ive death-bed  repentance,  —  that  of  the  thief  on  the 
cross,  —  one  example  that  we  might  not  despair,  one 
only  that  we  might  not  presume."  But  if  this  light 
be  resisted,  if  this  unutterable  series  of  voices  from 
the  seventh  heaven  meet  only  moral  obduracy  on  the 
part  of  the  passing  soul,  I  think  it  highly  probable, 
under  merely  natural  law,  that  this  moral  obduracy 
may  carry  with  it  such  hardening  and  such  blinding 
of  the  spirit  as  to  be  permanent. 

I  did  not  make  the  universe ;  but  the  universe  is 
so  made  that  whoever  sins  against  light  draws  blood 
on  the  spiritual  retina  of  the  moral  eyes.  It  is  the 
most  mysterious  thing  in  the  penalties  the  soul  is 
called  on  to  endure,  that  sinning  against  light  blinds 
us  to  the  very  illumination  needed  to  rectify  our 
condition.  That  is  a  fact  of  science  ;  that  is  a  ter- 
rific philosophical  truth  which  cannot  be  declaimed 
out  of  sight ;  that  is  a  tremendous,  indisputable  cir- 
cumstance in  natural  law;  and  on  it  I  plant  myself 
when  I  say  reason  shows  that  resisting  the  light  that 
comes  in  death  may  fix  character  and  so  end  pro- 
bation. 

To  enter  now  upon  the  very  centre  of  my  theme, 
I  beg  leave  to  read  twelve  passages  which  I  have 
selected  most  carefully  from  Holy  Scripture,  as  af- 
firming, directly  or  indirectly,  that  death  does  end 
probation.     I  am  quite   aware  that  this   is  a  topic 


60  OCCIDENT. 

which  for  centuries  has  had  the  most  elaborate  dis- 
cussion, and  that  on  this  theme  it  is  wholly  impossible 
to  say  anything  new ;  but,  if  a  man  speaks  from  the 
depths  of  his  owq  convictions,  he  is  likely  to  touch 
some  one  who  has  had  an  experience  similar  to  his 
own,  and  all  I  attempt  now  is  to  put  before  you 
what  convinces  me.  Many  a  rationalist  has  rejected 
the  Bible  as  of  divine  authority,  and  given,  as  one  of 
his  reasons  for  doing  so,  that  it  teaches  that  death 
does  end  probation,  and  that  the  state  of  character 
into  which  the  soul  drifts  through  the  moral  choice 
made  at  death  is  permanent. 

1.  "  We  must  all  appear  before  the  judgment  seat 
of  Christ,  that  every  one  may  receive  the  things 
done  in  his  hodyy     (2  Cor.  v.  10.) 

Compare  this  passage  with  the  statement  in  the 
twenty-fifth  chapter  of  Matthew  concerning  the  last 
judgment,  and  you  will  see  that  the  things  for  which 
men  are  commended  or  blamed  before  the  great 
White  Throne  are  things  which  they  could  do  only  in 
the  body.  I  cannot  explain  away  this  definite  state- 
ment that  we  are  to  stand  before  the  judgment  seat 
at  the  last  great  day,  and  every  one  of  us  receive  the 
things  done  in  his  body,  —  not  the  things  done  in 
the  intermediate  state. 

Character  may  grow  worse  after  death,  or  better, 
its  bent  remaining  what  it  was  at  death ;  and  yet 
it  is  the  teaching  of  Revelation,  as  the  acutest  and 
saintliest  of  its  students  have  read  it  as^e  after  as^e, 
that  the  issues  of  the  final  judgment  are  determined 
by  the  deeds  done  in  the  body. 

How  much  can  orthodoxy  grant  to  those  who  hold 


DOES  DEATH  END  PROBATION?        61 

the  doctrine  of  the  intermediate  state  ?  In  the  de- 
bate in  England  with  Canon  Farrar,  it  has  been 
granted  by  standard  Anglican  authorities  that  there 
may  be  four  places  in  the  universe  to  which  souls  go, 
—  Tartarus  and  Gehenna  on  the  left,  Paradise  and 
Heaven  on  the  right.  But  between  those  two  pairs 
of  places  there  is  a  great  gulf  fixed.  It  may  be,  so 
Anglican  orthodoxy  concedes,  that  some  souls  are  so 
imperfect  at  death  that  they  need  a  prolonged  prep- 
aration for  heaven.  Their  doom  is  fixed  by  their 
predominant  choice  at  death,  nevertheless  they  are 
not  ready  for  the  highest  mansions  in  their  Father's 
house ;  and  it  is  therefore  possible  that  in  a  paradise, 
considered  as  the  vestibule  of  heaven,  they  may  be 
kept  under  education  to  the  last  great  day.  Just  so, 
if  the  predominant  choice  of  a  man  at  deatli  is  evil, 
if  he  rejects  God,  he  may  not  go  at  once  to  the  deep- 
est of  tlie  pits  of  woe ;  he  may  go  into  gehenna,  but 
there,  it  being  impossible  for  the  good  to  visit  him 
from  the  other  side,  he  will  have  only  evil  compan- 
ionship, and  it  is  to  be  presumed,  in  view  of  what  we 
know  of  the  natural  laws  of  the  soul,  this  his  char- 
acter will  deteriorate.  His  predominant  choice  has 
been  evil,  free,  but  fixed  in  malignant  opposition  to 
God ;  and  so  through  the  vestibule  he  will  pass  into 
the  central  chambers  kept  for  those  who  have  at- 
tained permanence  of  evil  character.  Canon  Farrar 
says  that,  if  you  grant  him  as  much  as  this,  even  if 
you  deny  that  there  is  any  passing  from  side  to  side 
of  this  gulf,  he  is  satisfied.  You  think  Canon  Farrar 
asks  for  much  more  than  that.  In  language  which  I 
hold  before  me  in  his  latest  book  on  this  theme,  his 


62  OCCIDENT. 

"Mercy  and  Judgment"  (pp.  157,  158,  American 
edition),  Canon  Farrar  says,  "  Dr.  Pusey  would,  I 
suppose,  say  that  an  irreversible  doom  is  passed  "  in 
death  by  every  soul,  "  but  that  the  doom  may  be  to 
a  terminable  and  purifying  punishment,  —  a  view 
which  does  not  differ  very  materially  from  my  own." 
God's  mercy  may  reach  us  after  death,  "  in  the  form, 
if  not  of  probation  (for  on  that  subject  I  have  never 
dogmatized),  yet  of  preparation."  Canon  Farrar,  in 
his  summary  of  his  faith  given  at  the  end  of  this  vol- 
ume, says  only,  "  I  believe  that,  hereafter,  whether 
by  means  of  the  almost  sacrament  of  death,  or  in 
other  ways  unknown  to  us,  God's  mercy  may  reach 
many  who  to  all  earthly  appearance  [but  only  to  all 
appearance]  might  seem  [but  only  seem]  to  us  to 
die  in  a  lost  and  unregenerated  state."    (P.  483.) 

Anglican  orthodoxy,  without  protest,  has  allowed 
high  authorities  to  teach  that  there  is  an  interme- 
diate state,  Hades,  including  both  Gehenna  and  Par- 
adise, but  with  an  impassable  gulf  between  the  two. 
I  do  not  say  that  New  England  orthodoxy  is  satisfied 
with  this  mapping  out  of  the  region  beyond  death. 
Personally  it  seems  to  me  that  those  who  make  this 
map  assume  to  know  more  than  the  Scriptures  re- 
veal. I  do  not  care  to  have  the  region  beyond  death 
charted  like  a  continent  on  this  planet.  I  ask  you 
to  notice  carefully  that  Dr.  Pusey's  position  (see  his 
volume  entitled  "  What  is  of  Faith?  "),  which  Canon 
Farrar  at  this  vital  point  accepts  for  substance  of 
doctrine,  is  not  equivalent  at  all  to  what  is  called 
the  new  departure,  under  the  leadership  of  Profes- 
sor Dorner  and  his  American  followers.     Dorner  he- 


DOES    DEATH   END    PROBATION?  63 

lieves  that  the  great  gulf  is  not  fixed  ;  hut  Canon  Far- 
rar^  if  you  grant  him  a  preparation  for  the  ivorst  or 
for  the  best,  tvill  admit  that  the  gulf  hetiveen  these  two 
hinds  of  preparation  is  fixed.  He  is  forced  to  do 
this  by  the  exegetical  arguments  of  Anglican  ortho- 
doxy. Do  not  forget  the  large  historic  fact,  that, 
on  this  point,  Christendom  is  agreed,  —  the  Greek 
Church,  the  Roman  Church,  the  Anglican  Church, 
the  Non-Conformist  Church,  the  American  Evan- 
gelical Church.  There  is  hardly  a  point  on  which 
such  substantial  exesjetical  concord  has  been  reached 
age  after  age  as  on  this  matter.  You  think  the 
new  departure  has  been  led  in  England  by  Canon 
Farrar.  There  has  been  a  new  departure  on  a  num- 
ber of  points,  but  the  breadth  of  it  has  been  im- 
mensely exaggerated.  Canon  Farrar  is  sometimes 
a  loose  writer,  and  the  tendency  of  his  books  is  to 
carry  incautious  readers  further  toward  Universal- 
ism  than  the  author  has  gone  himself.  His  last 
book  is  much  more  moderate  in  tone  than  his  first. 
It  is  not  generally  known  that,  while  Canon  Farrar 
agrees  with  Dr.  Pusey  in  asserting  that  there  may  be 
in  the  intermediate  state  a  preparation  of  souls  for 
the  best  or  the  worst,  he  agrees  with  him  also  in 
asserting  that  we  have  no  right  to  feel  sure  at  all 
that  there  is  a  state  of  probation  there.  Every  un- 
converted man  is  in  a  state  of  dissimilarity  of  feeling 
with  God,  and  this,  without  supernatural  agency, 
will  be  permanent  except  as  it  may  grow  worse. 
But  nothing  in  Scripture  extends  beyond  this  life 
the  offer  of  salvation  by  such  supernatural  agency. 
2.  "  The  Lord  knoweth  how  to  keep  the  unrighteous 


64  OCCIDENT. 

U7ider  punishment   unto  the  day  of  judgment^     (2 
Pet.  ii.  9.) 

You  affirm  that  our  Lord  preached  to  spirits  in 
prison.  On  the  passage  to  which  you  now  direct 
my  attention  (1  Peter  iii.  18-21  and  iv.  6)  whole 
libraries  have  been  written,  and  scholars  do  not 
agree  yet.  Are  you  to  found  a  pyramid  upon  its 
apex?  Are  you  to  build  a  whole  new  theology  on 
a  disputed  obscure  passage?  What  if  I  were  to 
grant  you  that  our  Lord  went  and  preached  in  one 
case  to  spirits  in  the  intermediate  state  between 
death  and  the  day  of  general  judgment ;  are  you  to 
draw  from  this  fact  alone  such  stupendous  inferences 
as  Dorner  does?  The  notorious  truth  is  that  this 
passage  concerning  the  preaching  to  spirits  in  prison 
has  often  been  interpreted  by  scholars  of  the  very 
highest  rank  as  referring  not  to  preaching  to  the 
spirits  of  the  dead  at  all,  but  simply  to  those  "  who 
some  time  were  disobedient,"  on  earth,  "  when  the 
long-suffering  of  God  waited  in  the  days  of  Noah." 
You  wish  me  to  come  to  close  quarters  with  this 
celebrated  passage  ?  My  conviction  concerning  it  is 
that  Peter  is  to  be  explained  by  Peter.  The  famous 
passage  in  First  Peter  is  to  be  read  in  the  light  of  a 
passage  that  is  not  often  emphasized,  but  which 
ought  to  be  pushed  to  the  front  in  Second  Peter.  I 
read  here,  in  the  revised  version  of  Second  Peter, 
second  chapter,  verses  4  to  10,  that  "  God  spared 
not  angels  when  they  sinned,  but  cast  them  down  to 
hell  and  committed  them  to  pits  of  darkness,  to  be 
reserved  unto  judgment."  He  "  spared  not  the  an- 
cient world,  but  preserved  Noah,  with  seven  others, 


DOES  DEATH  END  PEOBATIOK  ?        65 

a  preacher  of  righteousness,  when  he  brought  a  flood 
upon  the  world  of  the  ungodly."  From  these  and 
other  great  historic  facts  here  recited,  the  Apostle 
draws  the  stupendous  inference  that  "  the  Lord  knoiv- 
eth  how  to  deliver  the  godly  out  of  temptation  and 
to  keep  the  uyirighteous  under  punishment  unto  the 
day  of  judgment^  With  all  respect  to  exegetical 
scholars,  it  must  be  affirmed  that  consistency  of 
meaning  is  the  supreme  law  of  the  interpretation  of 
any  passage,  sacred  or  secular.  Peter  must  be  in- 
terpreted as  consistent  with  Peter  himself.  In  this 
second  chapter  he  does  assert  that  God  spared  not 
the  ancient  world,  and  that  the  Lord  knoweth  how 
to  keep  the  unrighteous  under  punishment  unto  the 
day  of  judgment.  How  do  you  reconcile  that  dis- 
tinct statement  with  your  idea  that  these  very  peo- 
ple of  the  ancient  world,  after  they  had  gone  into 
an  intermediate  state,  heard  our  Lord  preach,  and 
that  his  preaching  was  effectual  for  their  salvation  ? 
I  assail  this  passage,  as  a  recent  writer  in  the  "  Bib- 
liotheca  Sacra"  (the  Rev.  W.  H.  Cobb  in  the  num- 
ber for  October,  1882,  p.  770)  has  done,  from  the 
rear.  I  use  Peter  to  explain  Peter.  What  sense  is 
there  in  such  reasoning  as  this?  God  spared  not 
the  ancient  world  while  its  inhabitants  were  on  the 
earth,  but  sent  Christ  to  preach  to  the  spirits  of 
the  inhabitants  of  the  ancient  world  after  they  had 
gone  into  the  intermediate  state,  and  there  caused 
them  to  be  converted  ;  therefore^  the  Lord  knoweth 
how  to  keep  the  unrighteous  under  punishment  unto 
the  day  of  judgment  I  Such  interpretation  intro- 
duces the  most  palpable  self-contradiction  into  the 


66  OCCIDENT. 

Holy  Word.  It  is  difficult  to  avoid  intellectual  chaos 
in  our  interpretation  of  Scripture,  if  we  adopt,  in  all 
its  necessary  logical  ramifications,  the  idea  that  there 
was  preaching  in  the  intermediate  state,  and  that  it 
was  effective  to  the  conversion  of  souls  lost  until  the 
preaching  occurred. 

I  will  not  affirm  that  the  second  of  tlie  three 
famous  passages  in  Peter  does  not  refer  to  jDreacliing 
to  the  dead  ;  but  I  must  interpret  even  that  passage 
in  consistency  with  this  definite  statement  that  the 
Lord  knoweth  hoAv  to  keep  the  unrighteous  under 
punishment  unto  the  day  of  judgment.  The  pas- 
sage does  not  refer  to  the  most  iniquitous  only.  The 
most  iniquitous  are  singled  out  afterward.  The  lan- 
guage plainly  applies  to  all  those  who  died  unpar- 
doned. Dean  Alford  uses  substantially  the  same 
language  in  his  translation  of  this  passage  which  the 
Revised  Edition  does.  I  know  that  Dean  Alford  de- 
fends the  doctrine  that  there  was  preaching  to  souls 
in  the  intermediate  state ;  but  he  is  not  the  only 
commentator  in  the  world.  You  can  cite  fifty  com- 
mentators on  your  side  of  the  case,  and  I  can  cite 
fifty  on  the  other  side.  Individual  opinion  amounts 
to  nothing  on  this  question.  We  must  strike  a  bal- 
ance of  whole  libraries ;  but  the  fact  after  all  is  that 
whole  libraries  have  not  settled  the  matter.  Do  you 
expect  to  obtain  public  confidence  by  standing  on 
a  quaking,  exegetical  bog  ?  This  passage  is  confess- 
edly obscure,  and  it  is  so  apart  from  the  general 
drift  of  revelation  that  we  have  no  right  to  j^lant 
upon  it  dogmatic  assertions  contrary  to  the  plain 
meaning  of  passages  which  are  clear.    One  text  must 


DOES  DEATH  END  PROBATION?        67 

not  be  allowed  to  check  the  flow  of  the  whole  central 
current  of  Scripture.  It  is  the  business  of  every  lay- 
man to  have  an  opinion  on  this  matter  and  to  search 
the  Holy  Word  for  himself.  I  commend  the  Second 
Epistle  of  Peter  to  the  attention  of  any  man  who  has 
been  misled  by  previous  passages  in  First  Epistle  of 
this  Apostle  as  they  have  been  interpreted  by  mod- 
ern scholarship,  or  the  lack  of  it. 

Even  if  you  think  it  prudent  to  deny  the  genuine- 
ness or  canonical  authority  of  Second  Peter,  you 
must  yet  admit  that  this  document  was  in  existence 
and  circulation  at  a  very  early  date  in  the  Apostolic 
Church,  and  that  it  shows,  therefore,  how  those  to 
whom  it  was  addressed  understood  the  topic  of  the 
preaching  to  spirits  in  prison. 

3.  "  Between  us  and  you  there  is  a  great  gulf  jixed^ 
so  that  they  who  would  pass  from  hence  to  you  can- 
not ;  neither  can  they  pass  to  us  that  would  come 
from  thence."     (Luke  xvi.  26.) 

I  am  quite  aware  that  it  is  affirmed  that,  although 
it  is  said  no  one  could  go  from  Abraham's  bosom 
across  this  gulf,  perhaps  one  might  go  from  God's 
bosom.  But  why  frighten  us  with  this  tremendous 
statement  concerning  the  gulf  fixed,  if,  in  the  dark- 
ness beyond  this  vista,  there  is  such  a  noon  of  light 
as  that  God  himself  is  to  preach  in  the  intermediate 
state  ? 

I  believe  that  light  is  kept  before  the  lost.  I  be- 
lieve that  God  will  be  all  in  all,  both  in  the  saved 
and  in  the  lost,  and  that  the  fact  that  God  is  all  in 
all  in  a  lost  soul  is  the  chief  source  of  its  misery. 
There  seems  to  me  to  be  no  more  terrific  description 


68  OCCIDENT. 

of  perdition  than  that  God  may  be  all  in  all  to  a  soul 
rebellious  to  Him. 

4.  "  He  that,  being  often  reproved,  hardeneth  his 
neck,  shall  suddenly  be  destroyed,  and  that  ivithout 
remedy.'"     (Prov.  xxix.  1.) 

5.  ''  Whoever  shall  be  ashamed  of  me  and  of  my 
words  in  this  adulterous  and  sinful  generation.,  of  him 
also  shall  the  Son  of  Man  be  ashamed  when  He  com- 
eth  in  the  glory  of  his  Father  with  the  holy  angels." 
(Mark  viii.  38.) 

6.  "  Whatsoever  thou  shalt  bind  on  earth  shall  be 
bound  in  heaven,  and  whatsoever  thou  shalt  loose  on 
earth  shall  be  loosed  in  heaven."     (Matt.  xvi.  19.) 

7.  "  Behold,  now  is  the  accepted  time  ;  behold,  now 
is  the  day  of  salvation."     (2  Cor.  vi.  2.) 

8.  "  If  we  live  after  the  fleshy  we  must  die ;  but  if 
by  the  spirit  ye  mortify  the  deeds  of  the  hody^  ye  shall 
live."     (Rom.  viii.  13.) 

9.  "  It  is  appointed  unto  men  once  to  die,  but  after 
this  the  judgment^'*     (Hebrews  ix.  27.) 

10.  "  There  is  no  respect  of  persons  with  God. 
For  as  many  as  have  sinned  without  law  shall  also 
perish  without  law :  and  as  many  as  have  sinned  in 
the  law  shall  be  judged  by  the  law,  in  the  day  when 
Grod  shall  judge  the  secrets  of  men  by  Jesus  Christ 
according  to  my  gospel."     (Romans  ii.  12-16.) 

11.  "  Ye  shall  die  in  your  sins.  Whither  I  go  ye 
cannot  come.  Ye  are  from  beneath  ;  I  am  from 
above.  I  said,  therefore,  unto  you  that  ye  shall  die 
in  your  sins  ;  for  if  ye  believe  not  that  I  am  He,  ye 
shall  die  in  your  sins.^^     (John  viii.  21-24.) 

Three  times  that  phrase  repeated!     Three  times 


DOES  DEATH  END  PEOBATION?        69 

in  a  hand's-breadtli  of  one  chapter  of  the  gospels  our 
Lord  himself  uses  language  which  I  can  interpret 
only  as  implying  that  death  is  a  finality. 

The  new  departure  is  not  found  in  the  gospels. 
The  doctrine  that  there  is  opportunity  of  repentance 
after  death  did  not  proceed  from  the  lips  of  Omnis- 
cience in  the  person  of  our  Lord.  The  decisive  fact, 
as  Professor  Park  has  said,  —  and  let  nobody  think 
the  word  of  Csesar  will  not  yet  stand  against  the 
world !  [hearty  applause],  —  is  that  He  who  was  the 
perfection  of  mercy  and  of  knowledge.  He  who  gave 
his  life  for  mankind.  He  who  represents  all  the 
heights  of  the  Divine  love,  never  taught  the  doc- 
trine of  repentance  after  death.  "  The  God-man, 
who  came  for  the  purpose  of  seeking  and  saving  the 
lost,  has  taught  more  imj)eratively  than  any  other 
one  that  men  who  are  lost  when  they  die  are  lost 
forever."  (Prof.  E.  A.  Park,  "  Discourse  at  the  In- 
stallation of  the  Rev.  Horace  H.  Leavitt,"  p.  30.) 

"  I  say  unto  you,  my  friends,  Be  not  afraid  of  them 
that  kill  the  body,  and  after  that,  have  no  more  that 
they  can  do.  But  I  will  forewarn  you  whom  ye  shall 
fear :  Fear  him,  which  after  he  hath  killed,  hath 
power  to  cast  into  hell ;  yea,  I  say  unto  you.  Fear 
him."  (Luke  xii.  4,  5.)  I  want  preaching  to  have 
the  biblical  tone,  and  I  do  not  see  how  it  can  have 
this  with  Dorner's  eschatology  behind  it. 

12.  "  He  that  is  unjust  let  him  be  unjust  still ;  and 
he  that  is  filthy  let  him  be  filthy  still ;  and  he  that  is 
righteous  let  him  be  righteous  still ;  and  he  that  is 
holy  let  him  be  holy  still.  And,  behold,  I  come 
quickly,  and  my  reward  is  with  me,  to  give  every 


70  OCCIDENT. 

mayi  according  as  his  work  shall  6e."  (Rev.  xxii. 
11,12.) 

The  implication  here,  as  everywhere,  is  that  we  are 
to  be  judged  by  the  deeds  done  in  the  body  and  under 
the  laws  by  which  character  tends  to  ultimate  stead- 
fastness, good  or  bad. 

This  topic  is  so  high  that  I  do  not  care  to  quote  on 
it  merely  human  authority ;  but  a  theological  semi- 
nary, which  is  dear  to  me  as  are  the  ruddy  drops  that 
visit  this  sad  heart,  has  been  very  much  misappre- 
hended of  late,  I  fear.  I  happen  to  know  that,  on 
the  last  Sabbath  of  the  last  year,  there  was  preached 
in  the  Seminary  chapel,  at  Andover,  an  elaborate 
discourse  by  the  professor,  of  the  relations  of  Chris- 
tianity and  science.  Dr.  Gulliver,  of  which  this  was 
the  central  proposition  :  "  The  Bible  contains,  on 
any  fair  interpretation,  not  a  suggestion  nor  a  word 
extending  the  offer  of  salvation  beyond  this  world." 
(''Golden  Rule,"  January  13,  1883.)  I  protest 
against  the  exaggerations  of  a  partisan  religious 
press,  representing  opinions  unfriendly  to  orthodoxy 
and  greatly  magnifying  the  present  breadth  of  what 
is  called  the  new  departure.  I  endeavor  to  believe 
that,  with  the  possible  exception  of  a  single  pro- 
fessor, the  history  of  the  new  departure  in  Andover 
Tlieological  Seminary,  as  it  now  stands,  might  be 
written  as  the  history  of  the  serpents  in  Ireland  was, 
in  the  famous  chapter,  consisting  of  a  single  sen- 
tence:  There  are  no  serpents  in  Ireland.  [Laugh- 
ter.]    There  is  no  new  departure.     [Loud  applause.] 

Almighty  God  is  undoubtedly  here ;  and  I  would 
have  this  discussion  conducted  as  if  on  our  knees  and 


DOES   DEATH    END    PROBATION?  71 

without  applause.  I  am  a  student  of  the  relations  of 
the  natural  laws  to  religious  truth,  and  I  profess  to 
you  before  God  that  I  find  the  natural  laws  as  stern 
on  the  topic  of  punishment  after  death  as  the  Bible 
itself.  Nature  is  as  orthodox  as  Scripture.  There 
are  two  sides  of  the  Divine  natural  laws;  they  lift 
the  good  as  inevitably  as  they  degrade  the  bad. 
They  are  in  operation  all  around  us.  Every  month 
I  see  men  of  whom  I  honestly  think  the  question 
is  not  whether  they  are  drifting  into  a  final  perma- 
nence of  evil  character,  but  whether  they  have  not 
already  attained  it.  Of  course,  it  is  self-contradic- 
tion to  suppose  that  a  final  permanence  is  not  final. 
Sometimes  an  unchanging  bent  of  character  is  at- 
tained in  this  world.  With  these  supreme  natural 
laws  around  us,  exhibiting  their  force  in  our  own 
experience  and  illustrated  by  all  history,  philosophy, 
and  literature, — by  Shakespeare,  by  Plato,  and  by 
every  great  student  of  the  human  faculties  since 
time  began,  —  how  can  we  conclude  that  they  will 
not  operate  in  the  intermediate  state?  Plato  said 
the  laws  of  the  next  world  are  brothers  to  the  laws 
of  this.  To  reason  from  the  stupendous  separations 
which  these  laws  produce  on  earth  to  corresponding 
separations  which  they  will  produce  in  eternity  is  to 
reason  in  the  only  scientific  and  secure  way  from  the 
known  to  the  unknown.  Heaven  deliver  us  from 
teaching  propositions  hazardous  to  the  souls  of  men ! 
God  prepare  us  all,  by  open  eyes,  by  regenerated 
hearts,  to  go  into  the  next  world  depending  only 
on  doctrines  which  are  safe  in  any  event  I  [Voices, 
"Amen,"  "Amen." J 


LECTURE  II. 
ADVANCED  THOUGHT  IN  GERMANY. 

If  England  is  our  Motherland,  Germany  is  our  Fa- 
therland. It  must  be  confessed  that  in  the  highest 
matters  of  philosophy  and  science  Germany  now 
leads  the  world. 

Germany  is  dear  to  me,  because  some  moments  of 
birth  for  great  intellectual  experiences  have  come  to 
me  on  her  soil.  At  Halle,  in  the  gardens  of  Tholuck 
and  in  the  lecture-rooms  of  Julius  Miiller  and  Her- 
mann Ulrici ;  at  Berlin,  in  the  auditorium  of  Dor- 
ner,  Curtius,  Kiepert,  Grimm,  and  Helmholtz,  and 
above  the  graves  of  Neander,  Schleiermacher,  and 
Hegel ;  at  Leipsic,  in  the  audiences  of  Delitzsch, 
Kahnis,  and  Luthardt ;  at  Heidelberg,  in  the  classes 
of  Kuno  Fischer  ;  at  Bonn,  most  especially,  in  con- 
sultation with  Lange,  or  prolonged  interviews  with 
Christlieb  ;  at  Gottingen,  at  the  burial  of  Schober- 
lein  and  Hermann  Lotze ;  at  AVeimar,  in  the  haunts 
of  Herder,  Richter,  Schiller,  and  Goethe,  I  have  re- 
ceived some  of  the  most  stimulating  personal  influ- 
ences to  which  I  can  look  back  in  any  land. 

The  chief  signs  of  the  times  in  regard  to  ad- 
vanced thought  in  German  theology,  as  I  interpret 
them,  are  four. 

1.  A  daring  but   unmistakable    under-current  of 


ADVANCED   THOUGHT  IN   GERMANY.  73 

opinion  in  favor  of  the  organization  of  the  more 
evangelical  portion  of  the  German  state  churches 
into  a  free  church,  with  no  connection  with  the  state. 

2.  The  downfall  of  the  mythical  theory  as  to  the 
New  Testament. 

3.  Profound  studies  of  the  natural  religion  of  con- 
science. 

4.  Progressive  and  yet  conservative  criticism  of 
the  Old  Testament. 

The  torpor  of  the  German  state  churches  is  one 
of  the  causes  giving  force  to  the  under-current  of 
demand  in  evangelical  circles  in  Germany  for  a  free 
church.  The  rationalistic  preachers  who  are  some- 
times sent  down  by  state  bureaus  to  preach  to  evan- 
gelical congregations  are  an  offence  to  the  German 
sense  of  fairness.  This  acute  grievance  incites  to  the 
support  of  a  movement  for  a  free  church.  What 
would  Americans  think  if  government  were  to  ap- 
point preachers  over  congregations,  and  if  a  devout 
assembly  were  to  find  itself  saddled  with  a  rationalist 
in  the  pulpit,  and  not  possessed  of  authority  to  un- 
seat him  ?  This  is  often  the  experience  of  really 
evangelical  congregations  on  the  Rhine,  the  Elbe, 
and  the  Oder.  Very  little  is  printed  on  this  sub- 
ject in  Germany ;  very  little  is  said  on  this  matter, 
except  in  whispers  in  private  circles ;  but  you  cannot 
be  long  in  association  with  the  leaders  of  evangelical 
thought  in  the  Fatherland  without  finding  that  they 
are  making  preparation  for  a  change  in  the  organiza- 
tion of  the  German  Church. 

When  the  present  Emperor  dies  there  will  come 
to  the  throne  in  the  German  Empire  a  man  of  most 


74  OCCIDENT. 

liberal  opinions  in  theology.  The  Crown  Prince  is 
not  a  rationalist.  He  should  not  be  regarded  as  an 
opponent  to  Christianity  ;  but  he  is  married  to  a 
daughter  of  Queen  Victoria,  who  thinks  that  any  man 
who  believes  in  miracles  is  either  a  hypocrite  or  a 
fool.  She  was  a  pupil  of  Strauss.  One  of  the  first 
important  remarks  I  heard,  on  going  to  Germany, 
nine  years  ago,  —  and  the  sentence  came  from  no  less 
a  man  than  Professor  Tholuck,  —  was  that  the  Crown 
Prince  had  married  a  woman  of  frivolous  opinions  in 
theology,  and  that  great  harm  might  ultimately  come 
to  the  empire  from  her  being  a  pupil  of  Strauss,  the 
author  of  the  mythical  theory.  A  similar  opinion  I 
met  often  on  a  recent  tour  to  six  of  the  foremost  Ger- 
man cities  and  universities.  It  is,  of  course,  not  cer- 
tain, but  it  is  probable,  that  the  new  court  which  will 
be  organized  after  the  present  venerated  Emperor 
passes  away  will  not  be  as  favorable  to  Christianity 
as  the  present  one.  Do  not  think  it  is  the  attitude  of 
the  court  which  determines  the  attitude  of  the  Ger- 
man state  churches  and  universities  toward  evangeli- 
cal Christianity.  You  are  immensely  mistaken  if  you 
fancy  that  any  court  has  power  to  lead  the  intellec- 
tual aristocracy  of  Germany  in  the  professorships  of 
the  great  Universities.  Lehrfreiheit  and  Lernfreilieit^ 
freedom  to  teach  and  freedom  to  learn,  —  these  are 
rights  asserted  in  Germany  in  the  teeth  of  any  possi- 
ble influence  from  the  court  for  or  against  Christian- 
ity. Germany,  in  the  past,  has  not  had  any  too  much 
political  liberty,  and  so  she  has  become  more  em- 
phatic than  perhaps  she  otherwise  would  be  concern- 
ing  the   preservation   of   her   intellectual   liberties. 


ADVANCED  THOUGHT  IN  GERMANY.      75 

One  of  the  most  skeptical  periods  in  modern  Ger- 
man history  was  when  there  was  on  the  German 
throne  a  really  Christian  ruler.  It  is  by  no  means 
the  influence  of  the  present  Emperor  that  has  effected 
the  recent  change  in  the  attitude  of  theological  schol- 
arship toward  rationalism. 

It  is  not  to  be  expected  that  any  large  trouble 
will  arise  from  the  coming  to  the  German  throne  of 
a  man  whose  opinions  may  not  quite  coincide  with 
those  of  the  present  Emperor  and  the  present  Chan- 
cellor, both  of  whom  are  devout  Christians.  Bis- 
marck has  a  strange  way  of  showing  his  mildness 
at  times  ;  nevertheless,  these  men,  in  life  as  well 
as  in  word,  stand  unflinchingly  forward  in  support 
of  a  scholarly  and  undefiled  Christianity.  They  are 
by  no  means  unable  to  give  good  reasons  for  the 
faith  that  is  in  them.  What  is  probable  is  that, 
when  the  present  Crown  Prince  comes  to  supreme 
power,  there  may  be  somewhat  more  freedom  al- 
lowed than  now  to  bureaus  above  the  state  churches 
in  sending  down  rationalistic  preachers  to  the  state 
church  congregations.  There  is  an  unmistakable 
revival  of  evangelical  religion  in  several  quarters  of 
Germany.  The  German  state  churches,  especially 
the  Lutheran,  have  been  petrified;  they  have  been 
very  ineffective  in  preparing  young  men,  in  a  relig- 
ious way,  for  the  ministry.  They  are  marshes,  in 
many  cases,  and  the  vapors  sent  up  from  them  ac- 
count for  some  very  strange  things  seen  through  ra- 
tionalistic university  telescopes.  Nevertheless,  evan- 
gelical life  has  taken  such  a  hold  upon  these  churches, 
in  many  parts  of   the  empire,  that,  if  the  bureaus 


76  OCCIDENT. 

send  down  rationalistic  preachers  much  longer  to 
evangelical  congregations,  there  will  be  a  secession, 
and  a  free  church  formed,  wholly  separate  from  the 
state.  In  such  an  emergency,  several  evangelical 
teachers  and  preachers  in  Germany,  now  known  on 
both  sides  of  the  Atlantic,  but  whom  I  must  not 
name,  for  I  do  not  wish  to  implicate  them  in  any  of 
these  revolutionary  agitations,  would  come  to  the 
front.  A  few  of  these  leaders  understand  well,  not 
merely  through  books,  but  by  travel,  the  condition 
of  Scottish  and  English  and  American  free  churches. 

It  has  often  been  my  duty  to  call  public  attention 
to  the  fact  that,  in  the  United  States  in  1800  we 
had  one  in  fifteen  of  the  population  inside  the  evan- 
gelical churches,  and  that  to-day  we  have  one  in 
five.  Here  is  the  result  of  a  century  of  sailing  over 
the  yeasty,  foaming  sea  of  a  free  church  in  a  free 
state,  where,  as  Europe  predicted,  we  were  to  be 
wrecked. 

Already  Australia  has  adopted  the  American  prec- 
edent for  her  guidance.  She  has  put  all  connection 
between  church  and  state  into  process  of  extinction 
in  all  her  colonies.  I  have  heard  Archbishop  Trench 
say,  at  his  own  table,  to  his  associate  ecclesiastics 
in  Dublin,  that  Ireland  could  not  go  back  to  a 
connection  of  church  and  state  if  she  would,  and 
would  not  if  she  could,  and  should  not  if  she  would. 
Church  and  state  have  long  been  partially  sepa- 
rated in  Scotland,  and  you  already  begin  to  hear, 
all  around  the  horizon  of  that  land,  rising  thunders 
on  the  theme  of  complete  disestablishment.  But 
who  expects  England  to  avoid  radical   discussions 


ADVANCED  THOUGHT  IN  GEEMANY.      77 

on  this  theme  a  century,  or  half  a  century,  or  a 
generation,  longer? 

Disestablishment  is  a  great  reform  to  be  expected 
in  a  near  British  future.  Non-conformity  in  England 
is  a  giant.  It  asks  no  favor  from  the  state,  and  is 
beginning  to  be  above  looking  for  any  favor  from 
mere  rank  and  title.  As  I  beard  a  great  London 
preacher  of  a  Non-conformist  body  say  :  "  Other 
things  being  equal,  the  weight  of  a  man  is  doubled 
in  England  by  his  belonging  to  the  Establishment." 
But  it  will  not  be  fifty  years,  as  I  hope,  before  such 
a  remark  cannot  be  made. 

England  is  learning  to  respect  Non-conformity.  It 
is  true  that  here  in  America  the  representatives  of 
the  same  denominations  who  are  called  Non-conform- 
ists in  England  stand  a  little  more  erect  socially  than 
some  Non-conformists  do  in  Great  Britain.  I  have 
the  utmost  respect  for  the  representatives  of  Non-con- 
formity in  the  British  Islands,  but  I  dislike  to  see 
occasionally  in  some  of  them  a  tendency  to  take  a 
craven  and  apologetic  attitude  before  the  Establish- 
ment. In  their  great  leaders  I  found  no  trace  of  this 
tendency.  It  seemed  to  me  snobbishness  ;  and  per- 
haps snobbishness  is  the  worst  thing  in  English  soci- 
ety. But,  on  the  whole,  free  churches  in  England 
and  Scotland  and  America  have  been  so  successful 
that  Germany  begins  to  study  their  system,  with  the 
view  of  imitating  it  by  and  by. 

If  a  free  church  should  spring  up  in  Germany  and 
be  obliged  to  stand  on  its  own  merits  or  fall,  we 
should  begin  to  see  a  new  style  of  German  preaching. 
Evangelical  zeal  reacting  through  the  congregations 


78  OCCIDENT. 

on  the  theological  halls,  would  give  us  a  new  type 
of  German  theology,  not  merely  scholarly,  but  de- 
vout. I  know  one  great  German  professor,  who  for 
years  was  a  pastor  in  London,  and  has  been  a  dele- 
gate to  the  Evangelical  Alliance  in  America,  who  is, 
perhaps,  at  this  moment  the  foremost  representative 
of  the  discussion  of  the  Christian  evidences  in  the 
German  tongue,  and  who  is  in  the  attitude  of  a  tiger 
ready  for  a  spring.  If  a  secession  of  evangelical 
churches  occurs  and  a  free  church  is  formed  in  Ger- 
many, he  will  be  the  man  for  the  hour.  His  heart, 
his  head,  his  history,  fit  him  to  lead  such  a  blessed 
change  in  the  ecclesiastical  arrangements  of  the  Ger- 
man Empire. 

What  is  advanced  thought  now  inculcating  in  Ger- 
many as  to  the  historic  evidences  of  Christianity, 
and  especially  as  to  the  mythical  theory  of  Strauss, 
which  gave  scholars  a  considerable  amount  of  trouble 
a  few  years  ago?  ^ 

1.  It  is  now  admitted  by  Baur,  Renan,  Strauss, 
and  all  reall}^  learned  infidels  that  four  of  Paul's 
epistles  were  written  before  the  year  60.  These  four 
are,  Romans,  Galatians,  and  the  First  and  Second  to 
the  Corinthians. 

2.  Paul's  four  undisputed  epistles  prove:  (1)  that 
within  twenty-five  years  of  the  date  assigned  to  the 
death  and  resurrection  of  our  Lord  numerous  Chris- 
tian societies  had  been  established  throughout  the 
whole  extent  of  the  Roman  Em23ire,  from  Jerusalem 
to  Rome  itself  ;  (2)  that  in  these  societies  there  was 
agreement  in  the  reception  of  the  doctrines  of  our 
present  gospels  as  of  divine  authority,  and  of  the 


ADVANCED  THOUGHT  IN  GERMANY.  79 

history  recorded  in  the  gospels  as  attested  by  the 
most  irresistible  and  overwhelming  contemporary 
evidence. 

These  four  epistles  alone  prove  that  the  creed 
taught  by  Paul,  and  received  by  the  Christian  soci- 
eties throughout  the  Roman  Empire,  before  the  year 
60,  included  substantially  all  that  the  Christian  creed 
of  to-day  embraces. 

3.  Between  34  and  60  A.  D.  there  is  not  time 
enough  in  any  age,  and  especially  not  enough  in  the 
age  of  Livy  and  Tacitus,  for  myths  and  legends  to 
grow  up  and  obtain  acceptance  as  histories  of  actual 
fact. 

4.  The  mythical  theory  of  Strauss,  the  legendary 
theory  of  Renan,  the  tendency  theory  of  Baur,  all  of 
them  applications  of  a  theory  of  development  to  the 
explanation  of  the  origin  of  the  New  Testament  lit- 
erature, are  thoroughly  confuted  and  shown  to  be 
now  utterly  untenable  by  serious  and  educated  men. 
(See  Bampton  Lectures  for  1877,  by  Prebendary 
Row  ;  also,  Prof.  Stanley  Leathes's  lecture  in  the 
volume  entitled  "  Modern  Skepticism,"  published  by 
the  London  Christian  Evidence  Society ;  and  also, 
the  Rev.  Dr.  J.  Oswald  Dykes'  article  in  "  Brit,  and 
Foreign  Ev.  Rev.,"  No.  cxi.,  on  "  The  Witness  of  St. 
Paul  to  Jesus  Christ.") 

5.  The  application  of  the  development  theory  to 
the  explanation  of  the  origin  of  the  New  Testament 
literature  having  thus  ignominiously  failed,  it  is  to  be 
presumed  £hat  we  shall  not  find  in  that  theory  a  com- 
plete explanation  of  the  Old  Testament  literature. 

Young  men  here,  or  those  no  older  than  your  pres- 


80  OCCIDENT. 

ent  lecturer,  remember  when  tlie  mythical  theory  of 
Strauss  was  passing  through  its  haughty,  domineer- 
ing period,  and  was  supposed  to  be  something  with 
which  it  was  a  little  dangerous  to  meddle.  I  recol- 
lect well  that,  when  I  entered  Yale  College,  I  was 
seriously  advised  to  read  and  not  to  read  Strauss's 
book  on  the  life  of  our  Lord.  I  took  it  down  and 
turned  it  over,  obtained  possession  of  the  theory, 
and  for  many  years  it  lay  in  my  mind  without  an 
adequate  answer  to  it.  No  adequate  answer  had 
been  given  in  1858.  Up  to  that  time  we  were  una- 
ble to  show  the  masses  of  the  people  just  how  this 
theory  should  be  confuted,  although  scholars  knew, 
of  course,  that  it  was  not  tenable.  I  was  in  a  period 
of  unrest.  I  was  passing  through  that  transitional 
era  in  which  young  men  can  raise  more  questions 
than  they  can  answer.  Scholars  were  annoyed  by 
this  theory,  because  it  was  not  easy  to  state  to  the 
people  clearly  what  the  answer  to  it  is.  A  reply 
presumes  considerable  knowledge  of  early  recondite 
matters  in  Christian  history,  and  I  am  now  ventur- 
ing much  in  trying  to  condense  into  a  few  minutes 
what  has  been  wrought  out  by  the  debates  of  a  gen- 
eration. 

It  was  supposed,  a  generation  or  two  since,  that 
the  earliest  date  to  which  we  can  trace  back  the  New 
Testament  literature  was  180,  or  thereabouts.  The 
date  assigned  to  the  Crucifixion  and  Resurrection  was 
not  earlier  than  30  and  not  later  than  34.  Here, 
then,  was  a  gap  between  the  upper  and  the  lower 
blade  of  a  pair  of  chronological  shears.  In  this  open- 
ing between  30  and  180  there  was  time  for  myth 3 


ADVANCED  THOUGHT  IN  GERMANY.      81 

and* legends  to  grow  up.  It  was  Strauss's  theory 
that,  between  30  and  180  or  200,  exaggerated  ac- 
counts of  what  the  founder  of  Christianity  did  were 
woven  about  his  idolized  memory  by  his  disciples, 
and  that  these  exaggerations  were  mistaken  for  his- 
tory. Elaborate  illustrations  were  drawn  from  the 
growth  of  myths  and  legends,  in  connection  with 
heathen  religions.  A  whole  science  of  myths  was 
originated,  and  you  have  it  taught  occasionally  by 
sufficiently  advanced  retrograde  thinkers  in  this  coun- 
try and  in  England  to  this  hour.  I  presume  a  ram- 
bling carelessness  of  liberal  tliought  can  be  found 
even  in  the  city  of  Boston  that  will,  to-day,  stand  on 
this  system  of  myths  and  legends  and  haughtily  re- 
ject the  New  Testament  literature  as  not  containing 
contemporaneous  evidence  of  the  reality  of  the  Chris- 
tian miracles.  But  what  has  happened  in  the  prog- 
ress of  research  ?  We  have  now  shut  these  shears 
until  the  lower  blade  stands  at  60,  the  upper  at  34. 
Even  Keim,  the  ablest  of  the  recent  negative  critics, 
goes  yet  further,  and  says:  ''We  may  definitively 
maintain  A.  D.  35  as  the  year  of  Jesus'  death." 
("Jesus  of  Nazara,"  vol.  vi.  p.  244.  Eng.  Trans., 
1883.) 

Go  with  me  to  the  Colosseum  in  Rome,  and  con- 
vince yourselves  that  certain  leading  Christian  events, 
eighteen  hundred  years  distant  from  us,  can  be  per- 
fectly verified  to  historic  conviction.  This  Colosseum 
is  a  huge  object.  It  is  difficult  to  get  out  of  sight  of 
it  in  the  wide  plain  of  the  centuries.  When  was  it 
built  ?  It  was  begun  in  the  year  72.  Who  built  it  ? 
Jews  captured  at  Jerusalem  were  the  chief  workmen 


82  OCCIDENT. 

employed  on  this  structure.  When  was  Jerusalem 
captured  ?  In  the  year  70.  Who  captured  it  ? 
Titus.  How  do  you  know  Titus  captured  Jerusa- 
lem? Across  the  street,  yonder,  is  an  arch  erected 
to  his  memory ;  and  on  it,  to  this  day,  in  beautiful 
relief,  you  have  representations  of  the  golden  candle- 
stick and  other  utensils  employed  in  the  Temple. 
Nobody  doubts  that  Titus,  in  the  year  70,  captured 
Jerusalem,  and  that  the  Jews  helped  to  erect  the 
Colosseum.  When  did  Nero  die?  In  the  year  68. 
Solid,  unmistakable  verities  these  stones  and  these 
dates  !  There  are  very  many  events,  eighteen  hun- 
dred years  gone  by,  of  which  we  are  more  sure  than 
we  are  as  to  what  happened  in  the  next  street  in 
the  last  hour.  When  did  Paul  die  ?  Under  Nero. 
Everybody  admits  that  Paul  died  in  the  reign  of  this 
despot,  although  there  is  a  dispute  as  to  the  year ;  but 
he  certainly  died  under  Nero,  and  therefore  before 
68.  When  did  Paul  Avrite  his  epistles  ?  Before  he 
died  ! 

We  know  that  Paul  wrote  his  epistles,  at  least  the 
four  I  have  named,  before  Festus  succeeded  Felix  in 
the  government  of  Judea.  When  did  Festus  succeed 
Felix  ?  In  60.  Paul  was  in  prison  in  Ca?sarea  two 
years  before  Festus  succeeded  Felix,  and  he  wrote 
these  epistles  before  he  was  imprisoned ;  so  we  carry 
the  date  of  the  oldest  of  the  four  up  to  58.  And  for 
reasons  which  I  will  not  enter  upon  in  detail,  the 
date  of  Galatians  is  now  often  put  at  54. 

Thirty-four,  fifty-four,  —  twenty  years  only  be- 
tween these  blades !  There  is  not  time  in  twenty 
years  for  myths  and  legends  to  grow  up  and  be  mis- 


ADVANCED   THOUGHT  IN  GERMANY.  83 

taken  for  history.  Is  it  asserted  that  human  mem- 
ory is  good  for  nothing  if  it  stretch  over  a  score  of 
years  ?  What  is  your  memory  worth  as  to  events 
happening  twenty  years  ago  ?  What  was  happening 
then?  1883,  1873,  18G3,— we  were  in  the  midst  of 
the  civil  war.  Your  testimony  before  any  jury,  as 
to  matters  of  any  size,  would  be  worth  something  to- 
day even  as  to  events  a  score  of  years  gone  by.  Do 
you  think  that  there  were  no  books  in  Paul's  day? 
Plenty  of  books  existed  then,  only  they  had  the  form 
of  parchment  volumes.  This  was  the  age  of  Livy 
and  Tacitus.  No  printing-presses,  indeed ;  but  books 
were  easily  multiplied.  Call  five  hundred  slaves  into 
this  room,  and  let  them  act  as  my  amanuenses.  I 
stand  here  and  slowly  dictate  the  contents  of  an  Ode 
of  Horace  or  an  Epistle  to  the  Romans.  My  five 
hundred  amanuenses  will  make  five  hundred  copies 
sooner  than  any  printer  in  this  city  can  set  up  the 
type  and  print  five  hundred.  Of  course  the  printer 
might  surpass  us  in  speed  in  producing  ten  thousand 
copies ;  but  when  parchment  volumes  are  passed 
from  hand  to  hand,  five  hundred  copies  go  far  and 
last  long  as  records.  The  idea  that  in  the  age  of  Livy 
and  Tacitus,  when  libraries  and  books  abounded, 
no  authentic  records  could  exist  and  be  spread 
abroad,  is  preposterous  in  the  highest  degree. 

Galatians  many  scholars  date  at  54.  But  I  open 
the  first  chpvpter  of  Galatians  and  read  that  Paul 
went  down  into  Arabia  and  spent  three  years.  Four- 
teen years  after  he  went  up  to  Jerusalem.  Now  if, 
as  many  commentators  do,  you  add  the  three  to  the 
fourteen,  you  obtain  seventeen  years  to  take  away 


84  OCCIDENT. 

from  the  twenty  between  54  and  34.  You  shut  those 
blades  of  the  chronological  shears  until  only  three 
years  remain  between  them.  St.  PauFs  testimony 
as  to  the  origin  of  Christianity  is  indisputably  con- 
temporaneous evidence,  and  the  puerile  assertion  of 
the  infidels  that  no  such  evidence  exists  to  the  real- 
ity of  the  great  events  connected  with  the  founding 
of  Christianity  is  overwhelmed,  horse,  foot,  and  dra- 
goons. Never  since  the  Apostolic  age  has  Chris- 
tianity stood  so  proudly  erect  on  her  rendered  rea- 
sons in  the  field  of  historic  research  as  at  the  present 
hour.  Strauss  abandoned  his  own  mythical  theory 
before  he  died.  It  was  buried  before  he  was.  There 
is  not  enough  left  of  Strauss's  mythical  theory  be- 
tween these  two  blades  to  make  a  fig-leaf  to  cover 
the  shame  of  historic  skepticism. 

The  watchword  of  the  profoundest  philosophy  in 
Germany  has  for  some  years  been,  Back  to  Kant. 
Two  great  influences  have  guided  philosophical  spec- 
ulation in  the  Fatherland,  a  theistic  and  a  pantheis- 
tic. The  former  originates  with  the  philosophy  of 
Plato  and  Aristotle,  and  is  represented  by  the  great 
succession  of  the  schools  of  Leibnitz,  Kant,  and  Lotze. 
The  latter  commences  with  Spinoza,  and  has  its  de- 
velopment in  the  schools  of  Schelling  and  Hegel.  It 
is  conceded  on  all  hands  that  the  foremost  philosopher 
of  Germany  in  the  present  generation  was  Hermann 
Lotze.  His  i^hilosophy  was  profound^  anti-material- 
istic and  theistic.  I  stood  at  his  grave  at  Gottingen 
soon  after  his  burial,  and  found  at  the  head  of  the 
tomb  the  fresh  palm  leaves  and  laurels  woven  into 
the  form  of  the  Christian  cross.     Lotze's  philosophy 


ADVANCED  THOUGHT  IN  GERMANY.      85 

sees  in  the  wide  field  of  human  observation  tliree 
things,  a  world  of  facts,  a  world  of  laws,  a  world  of 
wortlis.  By  the  latter  is  meant  the  standards  of 
value,  aesthetic  and  moral,  belonging  to  the  various 
objects  of  the  universe.  These  three  departments 
are  not  separable  in  reality,  but  only  in  thought. 
Lotze  insists  that  self-evident  truth  requires  us  to 
hold,  that  facts  are  the  field  in  which,  and  laws  the 
method  by  which,  the  standards  of  sesthetic  and 
naoral  worth  in  the  universe  are  established  and 
maintained.  He  insists,  in  opposition  to  all  panthe- 
istic and  materialistic  systems,  that  such  a  union 
can  become  intelligible  only  through  the  idea  of  a 
Personal  Deity,  who,  in  the  creation  of  the  world, 
has  voluntarily  chosen  certain  forms  and  laws  through 
which  the  ends  of  his  work  are  gained.  Our  rela- 
tions to  this  Omnipotent  and  Omnipresent  Being  are 
made  known  to  us  through  his  voice  in  tlie  conscience. 
The  highest  philosophy  of  our  age  is  on  its  knees  be- 
fore a  Personal  God. 


III. 


DELITZSCH  ON  THE  NEW  CRITICISM  OF 
THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

WITH  A  PRELUDE  ON 

THE   FUTURE   OF  CIVIL   SERVICE  REFORM. 

THE    ONE    HUNDRED    AND    FIFTY-THIRD    LECTURE    IN    THE 

BOSTON    MONDAY    LECTURESHIP,    DELIVERED    IN 

TREMONT   TEMPLE,   JANUARY   22,  1883. 


"  Men  in  office  have  beg-un  to  think  themselves  mere  agents  and 
servants  of  the  appoiutiug  power.  I  am  for  staying  the  furtlier  con- 
tagion of  this  plague."  —  Daniel  Webster. 

"One  third  of  the  working  hours  of  Senators  and  Representatives 
is  hardly  sufficient  to  meet  the  demands  made  upon  them  in  reference 
to  appointments  to  office.  The  present  system  impairs  the  efficiency 
of  the  legislators.  It  degrades  the  civil  service.  It  repels  those  high 
and  manly  qualities  which  are  so  necessary  to  a  pure  and  efficient 
administration.  It  debauches  the  public  mind  by  holding  up  public 
office  as  the  reward  of  mere  party  zeal.  To  reform  this  service  is 
one  of  the  highest  and  most  imperative  duties  of  statesmanship."  — 
James  A.  Garfield,  Atlantic  Monthly,  July,  1877. 


"  The  burning  question  of  the  age  is  not,  What  does  the  Bible 
teach  ?  It  is  one  yet  more  radical  and  fundamental,  What  is  the 
Bible  ?  "  — Professor  W.  Henry  Green. 

"  Of  this  I  am  sure  at  the  outset,  that  the  Bible  does  speak  to  the 
heart  of  man  in  words  that  can  only  come  from  God.  No  historical 
research  can  deprive  me  of  this  couviction,  or  make  less  precious  the 
Divine  utterances  that  speak  straight  to  the  heart."  —  W.Robert- 
son Smith. 


PRELUDE   III. 

THE  FUTURE   OF   CIVIL   SERVICE  REFORM. 

Civil  Service  Reform  in  the  United  States  lias 
succeeded,  as  yet,  only  on  paper,  except  in  the  city 
of  Brooklyn.  In  that  municipality  twelve  aldermen 
were  lately  put  in  jail  for  contempt  of  court.  A 
mayor  has  been  elected  who  is  conducting  the  local 
government  on  business  principles.  He  has  unusu- 
ally large  power  for  a  city  executive,  and  is  held  to 
a  marvellously  close  responsibility.  Brookljm  is  thus 
attempting,  at  this  moment,  to  solve  a  problem  of 
really  world-wide  interest. 

What  reply  are  we  to  make  to  the  sneer  of  aris- 
tocratic circles  in  England,  in  Germany,  in  India, 
and  of  conservative  leaders  in  Australia,  to  the  effect 
that  universal  suffrage  always  fails  to  secure  good 
government  in  great  cities?  A  fifth  of  the  popula- 
tion of  the  American  Union  now  lives  in  cities  of 
eight  thousand  or  more  inhabitants.  In  Australia 
the  suffrage  has  been  made  broad.  Nearly  a  quar- 
ter of  the  population  lives  in  cities.  In  Sydney,  and 
especially  in  Melbourne,  almost  precisely  the  difficul- 
ties which  the  United  States  have  had  with  corrupt 
city  officials  are  becoming  very  common,  filling  the 
newspaper  discussions  and  awakening  the  anxiety  of 
patriots  of  every  political  creed. 


90  OCCIDENT. 

Let  the  whole  world  be  the  background  of  all  our 
discussions  of  our  free  institutions  ;  for  the  whole 
world  is  watching  our  successes  and  defeats.  Re- 
member that,  if  we  succeed  in  putting  our  civil 
service  on  a  basis  that  will  secure  at  once  efficiency 
and  honesty,  we  shall  be  removing  the  chief  reproach 
brought  against  our  institutions  by  their  enemies 
abroad.  At  no  time  have  I  felt  more  humiliated  in 
the  presence  of  foreign  critics  than  when  I  have 
attempted  to  stand  on  the  ground  of  our  municipal, 
state,  and  national  civil  service,  and  show  that  its 
frequent  corruption  is  a  disease  of  the  surface,  and 
not  of  the  vitals. 

I  most  thoroughly  believe  that  we  are  as  honest  a 
people  as  there  is  on  the  face  of  the  earth ;  but,  in 
the  matter  of  civil  service  we  are  more  tempted 
than  any  other  people.  In  eighty-two  years  our  pop- 
ulation has  increased  from  3,000,000  to  53,000,000. 
As  late  as  1801  there  were  less  than  1,000  civil 
service  officers  in  the  whole  country ;  now  there  ai*e 
more  than  100,000.  We  had  then  69  custom-houses, 
and  now  have  135.  Our  ministers  to  foreign  coun- 
tries were  then  4,  and  our  consuls  63  ;  now  the  min- 
isters are  33,  and  the  consuls  728.  Then  we  had  906 
post-offices  ;  now  we  have  44,848.  The  Republican 
party  has  at  its  disposal  110,000  appointive  officers. 
George  Washington  could  know  something  definite 
as  to  the  fitness  of  all  the  men  he  appointed  to  the 
civil  service ;  but  it  is  not  in  the  physical  or  mental 
power  of  any  one  man,  nor  of  any  ten  men,  now  to 
sift  the  army  of  applicants  for  employment  under 
government,  and  dispense  its  enormous  patronage  m- 


THE  FUTUEE   OF  CIVIL   SEE  VICE  EEFOEM.       91 

telligently.  We  must  not  expect  to  tie  with  mere 
paper  twine  a  grab-bag  as  wide  as  the  continent, 
and  containing  a  constantly  increasing  income,  now 
amounting  to  1400,000,000  annually. 

The  civil  service  bill,  wdiich  has  just  become  a 
law,  will  be  opposed  by  scores  of  men  who  voted  for 
it.  The  question  put  to  a  new-comer  in  society  in 
Boston  is,  as  you  all  know,  Have  you  ever  written  a 
book?  In  New  York,  How  much  are  you  worth? 
In  Chicago,  How  are  you  getting  on  ?  In  San  Fran- 
cisco, Who  owns  you,  —  the  railway  monopoly  or  the 
sand-lots?  But  in  Washington  the  question  is.  Are 
you  likely  to  be  reelected  ?  [Laughter  and  applause.] 
Now,  the  people  have  spoken  on  the  subject  of  civil 
service  reform ;  and,  for  fear  of  losing  a  reelection, 
many  a  congressman  has  recorded  himself  on  the 
side  of  this  reform,  when,  as  I  believe,  he  will  not  be 
found  to  fight  very  heartily  for  it  at  the  polls  or  in 
caucuses. 

What  is  the  spoils  system  ?  It  is  the  application 
to  politics  of  the  old  style  of  marshalling  armies  in 
the  mediaeval  age.  The  army  was  to  be  inspired  by 
the  hope  of  plunder.  Loot !  Booty  !  These  were 
the  watchwords  of  attacking  battalions  when  a  city 
was  to  be  sacked.  A  secret  conclave,  a  single  chief- 
tain, gave  orders  for  the  whole  army,  and  the  rally- 
ing cry  of  the  soldiers  was  booty.  Aaron  Burr  was 
the  first  man  to  apply  to  politics  in  this  country  the 
military  system  of  the  mediaeval  age.  Spoils  !  Loot ! 
Booty !  These  are  to  be  the  inspiration  of  attacking 
columns  in  political  warfare.  Spoils  to  the  victors  ! 
This  was  to  keep  up  the  esprit  de  corps  of  great  po- 


92  OCCIDENT. 

litlcal  organizations.  And  just  as  in  an  army  a  few 
men  give  the  law  to  the  whole  mass  of  soldiers,  so 
a  secret  conclave,  or  a  single  chieftain,  according  to 
Aaron  Burr's  S3'stem,  was  to  rule  the  whole  army  of 
tliose  Avho  had  the  franchise.  As  the  supreme  crime 
in  the  soldier  was  bolting,  or  desertion,  as  it  is 
called  in  military  affairs,  so  the  supreme  crime  in 
the  voter  was  to  be  bolting  or  desertion  from  the  line 
of  effort  prescribed  by  the  chieftain.  This  is  the 
spoils  system,  that  had  its  first  application  to  our 
politics  by  the  subtle,  sensual,  almost  devilish  soul 
of  Aaron  Burr,  who  had  no  confidence  shown  him 
either  by  George  Washington  or  Napoleon  Bona- 
parte, as  much  as  he  tried  to  gain  the  good- will  of 
each  of  these  shrewd  judges  of  human  nature.  Mar- 
tin Van  Buren  approved  and  extended  this  scheme. 
Jackson  was  the  apt  pupil  both  of  Aaron  Burr  and 
Martin  Van  Buren. 

What  I  insist  on  is  that  booty,  loot,  has  become 
of  colossal  proportions  in  this  Republic.  You  have 
by  this  civil  service  bill  less  than  thirty  thousand 
of  our  officers  appointed  after  examination.  All  the 
rest  is  booty  yet ;  all  the  rest,  under  the  provisions 
of  this  bill,  can  be  changed  whenever  parties  are 
changed.  England  changes  only  about  thirty  men 
when  she  changes  parties.  Out  of  an  hundred  and 
ten  thousand  officers,  eighty  thousand,  including  all 
on  whose  appointment  a  vote  of  the  national  Senate 
is  necessary,  are  not  reached  by  this  enactment. 
Very  soon  there  will  be  one  hundred  thousand  to  be 
changed,  even  if  this  bill  is  carried  out.  Our  popu- 
lation is  doubling  every  twenty-five  or  thirty  years. 


THE  FUTURE   OF   CIVIL   SERVICE  REFORM.       93 

We  might  have  that  law  fairly  executed,  and  yet 
change  two  hundred  or  four  hundred  thousand  offi- 
cers every  time  we  change  parties  at  Washington. 
The  Republic  will  not  safely  bear  this  strain. 

I  do  not  assail  the  new  civil  service  law  as  any- 
thing else  than  the  best  that  could  be  carried  through 
Congress  at  the  present  time.  It  is  an  educative 
measure.  It  is  a  moderate,  wise  enactment,  under 
the  present  circumstances.  I  greatly  reverence  the 
wisdom  of  the  chief  promoters  of  this  bill,  especially 
of  the  man  who  drew  the  larger  part  of  it,  the  Hon. 
Dorman  B.  Eaton,  and  of  the  Senator  who  added  the 
section  against  political  assessments,  —  General  Haw- 
ley,  of  Connecticut.  [Applause.]  They  are  likely 
to  be  remembered  in  generations  to  come  as  foremost 
friends  of  one  of  the  most  important  reforms  of  our 
vexed  day.  These  men  are,  no  doubt,  profoundly 
shrewd  in  driving  the  thin  end  of  the  wedge  first, 
and  not  attempting  to  force  the  thickness  of  reform 
at  once  into  the  gnarled  oak  of  popular  and  partisan 
prejudice. 

But  I  think  it  high  time  to  raise  a  note  of  alarm, 
—  a  note  of  predictive  warning,  at  least,  —  that,  even 
if  its  provisions  could  be  carried  out  in  good  faith, 
the  new  civil  service  law  would  not  close  the  grab- 
bag  of  partisan  spoils.  It  leaves  open  more  than  two 
thirds  of  the  entrance  into  that  continental  basket  of 
the  treasury.  We  must  expect  that  the  size  and  fat- 
ness of  these  spoils  will  continue  to  be  a  temptation 
to  greed  and  fraud.  Caesar,  Antony,  and  Lepidus 
never  had  $400,000,000  to  dispose  of  annually. 

But  who  expects  that  the  new  law  will  be  carried 


94  OCCIDENT. 

out  in  good  faitli  by  the  Democrats  if  they  come  to 
power,  or  by  the  ReiDublicans  in  case  they  should  suc- 
ceed the  Democrats,  unless  the  people  rise  and  thun- 
der in  its  favor  continually.  We  had  a  civil  service 
commission  appointed,  not  many  years  ago,  and  we 
had  high  hopes  about  what  it  was  to  do  ;  but  Con- 
gress starved  it  to  death.  It  is  a  significant  whisper 
at  Washington  that  more  than  a  score  of  politicians 
who  voted  for  that  bill  are  known  to  be  resolved  to 
work  for  its  defeat  as  a  law.  On  the  day  when  that 
bill  passed  the  House  of  Representatives  it  was  my 
privilege  to  be  in  the  national  Capitol,  and  I  put  the 
question  right  and  left,  "  What  will  be  the  fate  of 
the  Civil  Service  Reform  Bill  the  Senate  has  sent  to 
tlie  House  ?  "  "  It  cannot  pass.  There  is  no  hope 
of  its  passing.  Even  if  it  should  pass,  it  would  be  so 
changed  that  you  would  not  know  the  bill."  But  it 
did  pass  by  an  overwhelming  majority  of  three  to 
one.  That  vote  is,  probably,  the  most  auspicious 
event  in  our  history  since  the  overthrow  of  the  Re- 
bellion and  the  resumption  of  specie  currency  ;  but  I 
would  have  you  look  beyond  it. 

The  political  managers  of  the  country  are  yet  a 
close  league.  The  Tammany  Halls,  the  Albany  Re- 
gencies, under  other  names  and  under  the  old  ones, 
are  yet  active.  There  is  thus  far  no  serious  attempt 
made  to  apply  civil  service  reform  to  state  and  mu- 
nicipal affairs.  There  are  large  and  dangerous  loop- 
holes in  this  new  enactment.  Suffice  it  to  say,  many 
a  man  who  voted  for  it  is  now  whispering,  "We  will 
drive  a  coach  and  four  through  it."  Now  I  wish  the 
people  to  put  a  strong  hand  on  the  reins  of  any  coach 


THE  FUTURE  OF  CIVIL   SERVICE  REFORM.       95 

and  four  that  seeks  to  drive  through  this  law  [ap- 
plause], and  show  them  that  such  audacity  is  not 
profitable. 

The  last  elections  were,  apparently,  a  triumph  of 
the  people  over  party.  They  were  a  blow  of  the  se- 
rious masses  of  citizens  against  the  political  machine. 
They  were  an  assertion  of  the  independence  of  the 
people  over  political  dictation  and  secret  conclaves. 
They  were  a  proclamation  of  the  sense  of  the  people 
that  state  affairs  should  not  be  under  national  con- 
trol, and  city  affairs  not  under  state  control.  We 
have  entered,  apparently,  upon  a  new  era  of  inde- 
pendent politics.  Thank  God,  it  has  been  proved 
that  only  independent  and  Sunday-school  politics  are 
good  for  anything  through  a  course  of  four  years  ! 
[Applause.] 

This  bill  contains  four  great  words,  —  examina- 
tion, probation,  promotion,  prohibition  :  examination 
of  all  candidates  for  place  in  the  civil  service  ;  the 
appointment  of  men  from  the  list  of  those  who  have 
successfully  passed  this  examination  ;  promotion  for 
merit ;  probation  before  an  absolute  appointment 
is  made  ;  and  prohibition  of  political  assessments. 
These  are  the  four  great  ideas  of  this  bill,  unless  I 
should  mention  as  a  great  idea  —  it  is  so  novel  —  that 
no  man  shall  be  employed  in  the  public  service  who 
uses  intoxicating  liquors  to  excess.  [Applause.] 
Thank  Heaven,  that  provision  is  a  part  of  this  law  ! 
[Applause.]  But  the  people  must  stand  unflinch- 
ingly by  each  one  of  these  great  words ;  otherwise 
they  will  turn  out  to  be  but  thin  air.  Over  and  over 
we  have  been  cheated  in  the  promise  or  the  hope  of 


96  OCCIDENT. 

civil  service  reform;  and,  unless  the  people  thun- 
der at  the  polls  repeatedly,  the  certainty  is  that  many 
a  coach  and  four  will  make  sport  of  the  barriers  now 
expected  to  shut  out  from  our  national  politics  a  dan- 
gerously partisan  use  of  patronage. 

What  more,  then,  ought  the  friends  of  civil  ser- 
vice reform  to  do  ? 

1.  Maintain  the  organization  of  civil  service  leagues 
throughout  the  country  to  w^atch  the  execution  of  the 
law  just  enacted. 

2.  Distribute  literature  to  keep  before  the  people 
the  great  facts  as  to  the  reform. 

3.  Prepare  defeat  at  the  polls  for  all  opponents  of 
the  new  law. 

4.  Broaden  that  law  gradually  so  as  to  embrace 
consular  appointments  and  the  majority  of  all  the 
civil  service  offices. 

5.  Extend  the  operation  of  civil  service  examina- 
tion, probation  for  final  appointment,  promotion  for 
merit,  and  prohibition  of  political  assessments  to 
state  governments. 

6.  Extend  the  same  to  the  whole  sphere  of  munic- 
ipal governments. 

Our  example  will  tell  to  the  very  ends  of  the  earth 
in  the  high  matter  of  the  leadership  of  hermit  nations 
that  are  now  reforming  themselves,  and  we  shall 
be  imitated  oftener  than  England  will  be,  provided 
we  show  only  that  a  broad  suffrage  can  govern  thor- 
oughly well  our  great  cities  and  a  colossal  civil  ser- 
vice. The  eyes  of  civilized  nations  throughout  the 
world  are  on  America.  There  is  much  more  likeli- 
hood that,  in  the  reforms  of  the  future,  England  will 


THE   FUTURE   OF   CIVIL   SERVICE   REFORM.        97 

approach  ns  tlian  that  we  shall  approach  her.  The 
topic  of  civil  service  reform  ought  to  be  discussed, 
not  merely  in  its  municipal  and  state  and  national 
relations,  but  in  its  international.  I  would  have 
young  men  who  are  friends  of  reform  quote  often  to 
themselves  Edmund  Burke's  adjuration :  *•'  Sursum 
cor  da  !  Lift  up  your  hearts  ! "  Act  as  patriots  to- 
ward cities  and  states  and  nations,  and  the  whole 
world.  The  cause  which  seeks  to  promote  a  pure 
civil  service  in  the  foremost  Republic  of  all  time  is 
a  hope  of  all  humanity  ;  for  at  the  bottom  of  every 
serious  soul  on  the  globe  is  the  prayer  that  govern- 
ments of  the  people,  for  the  people,  and  by  the  peo- 
ple may  not  perish  from  the  earth.  [Applause.] 
7 


LECTURE   III. 

DBLITZSCH    ON    THE   NEW   CRITICISM    OF    THE    OLD 
TESTAMENT. 

The  Scriptures  of  tlie  Old  Testament  were  tlie 
Bible  of  our  Lord  and  Saviour  himself.  Whoever 
applies  to  them  the  microscope  and  scalpel  of  mod- 
ern criticism  seems  to  be  half  profane.  We  must  not 
blame  average  Christians  for  feeling  a  shudder  pass 
through  their  souls  as  they  see  the  Old  Testament 
laid  on  the  dissecting  table,  and  treated  with  all 
the  coolness  with  which  a  corpse  is  handled  under 
the  knives  of  a  surgeon.  Eighteen  centuries  of  vic- 
torious Christian  discussion  prove,  however,  that 
there  is  nothing  permanently  unsafe  in  the  applica- 
tion of  knives  and  microscopes  to  all  themes,  how- 
ever sacred.  Shut  the  door  on  inquiry,  and  doubt 
always  comes  in  at  the  window.  Let  investigation 
proceed;  let  the  Old  Testament  be  examined  as 
thoroughly  as  the  New  has  been  ;  let  theories  of  de- 
velopment be  applied  to  it  as  they  have  been  to  the 
New.  Very  probably  the  result  on  the  field  of  Old 
Testament  criticism  will  be  what  it  notoriously  has 
been  on  that  of  the  New,  —  that  attack  will  lead  to 
reply,  and  the  serious  efforts  of  infidels  occasion  yet 
more  serious  efforts  of  Christians  ;  and  so,  while 
knowledge  is  enlarged,  impregnable  fortifications  will 


DELITZSCH   ON   THE  OLD  TESTAMENT.  99 

rise  on  ground  where,  hitherto,  there  has  been  an  in- 
sufficient defence. 

What  position  does  the  advanced  thouglit  of  Ger- 
many take  concerning  the  new  criticism  of  the  Old 
Testament  ? 

There  are  three  schools  of  Old  Testament  criti- 
cism in  Europe.  On  the  extreme  right  is  a  man  like 
Keil,  well  known  to  all  scholars  as  the  joint  author 
with  Delitzsch  of  probably  the  best  series  of  com- 
mentaries on  the  Old  Testament.  He  is  an  extreme 
conservative  ;  his  orthodoxy  we  should  call  that  of 
the  old  school.  In  the  middle  stands  Delitzsch,  a 
conservative  progressive,  or  a  progressive  conserva- 
tive. On  the  extreme  left  you  have  men  like  Well- 
hausen  and  Kuenen.  Old  school,  new  school,  raw 
school !  These  are  accurate  designations  of  the  par- 
ties usually  found  in  the  front  of  advancing  discuS' 
sion.  The  new  departure  which  I  have  been  discus- 
sing seems  to  me  to  be  rather  more  than  new  school ; 
it  is  very  nearly  raw  school.  I  belong  to  the  new 
school ;  but  Heaven  forbid  that  I  should  join  the  raw 
school ! 

Wellhausen  and  Kuenen  I  have  heard  spoken  of 
with  disrespect  by  nearly  every  scholar  with  whom  I 
conversed  in  Germany.  I  must  not  name  my  au- 
thority ;  but  I  went  one  day  to  a  great  commentator 
of  the  University  of  Bonn,  —  a  man  whose  name  is 
known  throughout  the  world,  —  and  I  said  to  him, 
"What  do  you  think  of  Wellhausen?"  "A  most 
pestilent  critic;  a  man  who  is  misleading  the  theo- 
logical students  of  Germany ;  not  at  all  a  representa- 
tive of  our  best  scholarship  ;  a  person  with  a  beau- 


100  OCCIDENT. 

tifiil  style,  attractive  in  Lis  manner  of  presenting  his 
themes,  but  usually  without  substance  in  his  critical 
analysis." 

Walking  along  the  bank  of  the  Rhine  with  a  Ger- 
man professor,  whose  name  is  known  throughout 
Christendom,  and  not  seeking  nor  expecting  any 
such  disclosure,  I  was  told  that  it  is  believed,  that 
more  than  a  few  theological  pupils  in  Holland  are 
immoral  men.  Nobody  pretends  to  doubt  that  in 
some  of  the  theological  schools  of  the  Netherlands, 
and  especially  in  the  hall  at  the  head  of  which 
Kuenen  stands,  morality  is  not  indispensable  to  mem- 
bership of  a  theological  class.  On  a  topic  like  this 
only  a  whisper  can  be  uttered.  I  said  to  my  infor- 
mant, "  If  the  facts  were  known  in  the  United 
States  that  theological  students  in  certain  schools 
are  believed  on  credible  evidence  to  be  immoral  men, 
we  should  no  more  take  our  theology  from  that  style 
of  schools  than  we  should  take  our  drinking  waters 
from  these  gutters."  There  is  not  a  little  of  theo- 
logical discussion  in  Europe  conducted  by  immoral 
men.  It  is  a  fact  that  students  sometimes  come  out 
of  semi  -  rationalistic  theological  courses  in  France 
and  Holland  with  the  filth  of  the  pit  upon  them,  and 
go  into  state  churclies  as  preachers,  or  into  certain 
universities  as  professors  ;  and,  when  books  are  pub- 
lished by  them,  we  must,  forsooth,  sit  down  and  pick 
them  to  pieces,  and  study  them  with  painstaking 
candor ;  for,  if  we  do  not,  liberalism  will  criticise  us 
for  narrowness.  Let  us  send  forth  from  America  a 
breath  of  New  England  moral  dignity  to  sweep  out 
of  sight  all  theology  that  does  not  come  from  a  pure 
heart  as  well  as  a  clear  head  I 


DELITZSCH  ON  THE   OLD  TESTAMENT.  101 

Wellhausen,  who  was  lately  a  professor  of  theology 
in  Greifswald,  is  now  a  member  of  the  philosophical 
faculty  at  Halle.  He  lately  had  but  five  hearers 
there  ;  and  it  is  said  to  be  exceedingly  difficult  for  a 
stranger  to  find  the  hall  in  which  he  lectures.  Ger- 
many has  not  asked  for  the  second  part  of  his  famous 
book  on  the  History  of  Israel.  Only  the  first  part 
has  been  published,  and  that  is  fragmentary  in  struc- 
ture. He  has  just  announced  that  he  does  not  intend 
to  issue  the  second  part  for  many  years  to  come,  and 
that  there  will  not  be  soon  any  new  edition  of  the 
old  part  now  out  of  print.  Does  that  look  as  if  Ger- 
many were  perishing  to  know  Wellhausen's  opinion 
on  the  Old  Testament  ?  I  once  had  opportunity  to 
ask  Robertson  Smith,  in  a  parlor  in  Aberdeen,  "  How 
would  you  prove  the  supernatural  origin  of  the  Dec- 
alogue ?  "  His  answer  was :  "  You  cannot  prove  it  to 
a  man  who  is  not  inclined  to  admit  it."  Whereupon 
I  said,  "  What  do  3-ou  think  of  Wellhausen's  theories 
concerning  the  Old  Testament  ?  "  "I  do  not  adopt 
them  all.  I  make  strenuous  objection  to  many  of 
them  ;  but  I  believe  Wellhausen  knows  more  of  the 
Old  Testament  than  any  other  man  in  Germany." 
Delitzsch,  on  the  other  hand,  says  that  Wellhausen 
pleases  young  scholars,  but  not  mature  ones. 

Let  me  turn  from  the  raw  school,  and  also  from  the 
old  school,  to  that  middle  position  which,  I  believe, 
is  the  safest.  Let  us  hear  what  men  like  Delitzsch 
say  in  answer  to  the  question.  How  are  we  to  meet 
the  new  criticism  of  the  Old  Testament  ?  This  preg- 
nant inquiry  I  am  able  to  answer  in  Professor  De- 
litzsch's  own  words.     It  will  always  be  a  keen  de- 


102  OCCIDENT. 

light  to  me  to  recall  in  memory  an  evening  at  Leip- 
sic,  when  I  heard  this  great  Old  Testament  scholar 
read  eight  propositions,  before  an  English  gathering 
of  students,  and  expand  them  to  an  hour  and  a  quar- 
ter in  vivid,  idiomatic  English  speech.  I  now  hold 
in  my  hand  Delitzsch's  autograph  copy  of  these  eight 
theses.  They  seem  to  me  to  be  altogether  the  most 
authoritative  and  weighty  words  that  have  recently 
been  uttered  on  Old  Testament  criticism,  and  not  to 
be  surpassed  in  value  by  anything  their  author  has 
wi'itten  elsewhere  in  space  as  small  as  these  occupy. 
I  had  his  permission  to  publish  them,  and  I  shall 
venture  to  read  them,  as  they  are  brief  and  exceed- 
ingly pointed.  Here,  then,  is  the  platform  on  which 
the  evangelical  conservative  and  progressive  new 
criticism  of  the  Old  Testament  stands,  and  I  con- 
fess that  it  is  a  position  to  which  I  should  be  glad  to 
bring  the  whole  Christian  Church.  Professor  De- 
litzsch  says :  — 

1.  "The  historical  criticism  of  the  Old  Testament  Scrip- 
tures, as  practised  by  Kuenen  and  others,  starts  from  the 
dogmatic  presupposition  of  the  anti-superiiaturalistic  view 
of  the  world.  This  criticism  denies  miracle,  denies  proph- 
ecy, denies  revelation.  Employing  these  words,  it  joins 
with  them  philosophical,  not  biblical,  conceptions.  The  re- 
sults of  this  criticism  are,  in  the  main  points,  foregone  con- 
clusions, and  its  presuppositions  are  ready  for  use  in  ad- 
vance of  any  investigation." 

Anti-supernaturalism  is  the  loadstone  that  throws 
every  compass  on  the  ship  of  this  new  criticism  out 
of  its  natural  position.  The  Old  Testament  must  be 
so  manipulated  as  to  show  that  nothing  miraculous 


DELITZSCH   ON   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT.  103 

lies  behind  its  accounts  of  the  supernatural.  In  or- 
der to  prove  that  no  prophecies  were  ever  fulfilled, 
the  date  of  many  prophets  must  be  brought  down  be- 
yond that  which  has  been  assigned  to  them  for  ages 
by  the  best  scholarship.  The  Decalogue  could  not 
have  been  proclaimed  on  Sinai  among  thunders ;  and 
so  we  must  suppose,  says  Wellhausen,  that  all  that  is 
said  in  the  Book  of  Exodus  about  thunders  of  Sinai 
is  a  fiction,  a  piece  of  rhetoric  invented  many  genera- 
tions after  the  day  of  Moses  to  give  impressiveness 
to  the  moral  law. 

2.  "  On  the  contrary,  our  historical  criticism  starts  from 
an  idea  of  God  from  which  the  possibiUty  of  miracle  follows. 
Confessing  the  resurrection  of  Christ,  it  confesses  the  real- 
ity of  a  central  miracle  to  which  the  other  miracles  of  re- 
demptive history  refer,  as  to  the  sun  its  satellites.  In  view 
of  the  indisputable  harmony  of  the  Old  Testament  predic- 
tion and  the  New  Testament  fulfilment,  it  confesses  the 
reality  of  prophecy.  In  consequence  of  the  self-knowledge 
and  the  recognition  of  God  which  Christianity  affords,  it 
confesses  the  reality  of  revelation. 

3.  "  We  reject,  a  priori,  all  results  of  criticism  which  abol- 
ish the  Old  Testament  premises  of  Christianity  as  the  religion 
of  redemption.  The  second  and  third  chapters  of  Genesis 
are  of  greater  weight  than  the  entire  Pentateuch.  In  this 
history  of  man's  temptation  and  fall,  and  of  God's  prepara- 
tions for  the  reformation  of  men  through  judgment  and  strug- 
gles, it  may  be  that  facts  and  the  dress  of  the  facts  —  that  is, 
the  forms  of  representation  in  which  they  are  clothed  —  are 
to  be  distinguished  from  each  other  ;  but,  with  the  substantial 
reality  of  this  history,  the  religion  of  redemption  stands  or 
falls.  The  historical  unity  of  the  origin  of  mankind  is  one 
of  the  indispensable  presuppositions  of  Christianity,  which, 


104  OCCIDENT. 

without  it,  could  be  the  religion  of  the  most  perfect  morals, 
but  not  the  religion  of  tlie  redemption  of  mankind. 

4.  "Those  portions  of  the  contents  of  the  Pentateuch 
which  belong  to  the  substance  of  Christian  faith  are  inde- 
pendent of  the  results  of  critical  analysis.  For  that  the 
people  of  Israel,  after  their  miraculous  deliverance  from 
Kiryptian  slavery,  received  the  law  by  God's  miraculous 
revelation  in  the  Mount  of  Sinai,  and  that  Moses  was  the 
mediator  both  of  Israel'e  deliverance  and  of  the  Divine  leg- 
islation, is  confirmed  by  the  unanimous  testimony  of  all  the 
writers  who  participated  in  the  codification  of  the  Penta- 
teuch ;  by  the  Song  of  Deborah  (Judges  v.),  and  by  the 
proi)hets  of  the  eighth  century,  as  Amos  il.  10  ;  Hosea,  xii. 
13;  Micah  vi.  4,  and  vii.  15.  The  religious  tone  and  sub- 
stance of  such  authentic  Psalms  of  David  as  Psalms  viii., 
xiv.,  xvi.,  are  quite  inexplicable  without  the  priority  of  the 
revealed  law  which  David  praises  in  Psalm  xix. 

5.  "  The  oldest  constituent  part  of  the  law  is  the  Dec- 
alogue, and  the  Book  of  the  Covenant  (Ex.  xx.,  xxiii.),  the 
overture  of  which  is  the  Decalogue.  In  Deuteronomy, 
Moses  repeats  the  Decalogue  freely,  and  melts  it  in  the 
current  of  his  testamentary  admonitions.  In  the  Pentateuch 
there  is  no  part  claiming,  according  to  its  own  testimony,  to 
be  written  by  Moses  himself,  which  may  not  be  shown  to  go 
back  substantially  to  Moses'  own  hand.  The  proper  stylo  of 
Moses  is  the  original  of  that  form  of  style  which  is  called 
Jehovistic  and  Deuteronomic. 

6.  "  It  is  true  that  many,  or,  at  least,  four  hands  partici- 
pated in  the  codification  of  the  Pentateuchal  history  and 
k^gislation.  But  what  the  modern  critics  say  regarding  the 
ages  of  these  writers  is  quite  uncertain.  In  general,  the 
results  reached  by  these  critics  are  by  no  means  as  unques- 
tionable as  they  [)retend  to  be.  It  would  be  unfortunate  if 
the  faith  of  the  Church  —  that  is,  our  historical  certainty 


DELITZSCH   ON  THE   OLD   TESTAMENT.         105 

of  the  fundamental  facts  of  redemptive  history,  were  de- 
pendent on  these  critical  results.  Many  of  the  former  re- 
sults of  the  critical  school  are  now  out  of  fashion  ;  its  pres- 
ent results  often  contradict  each  other.  In  reality,  we 
know  little,  and  imagine  that  we  know  much. 

7.  "It  is  unjustifiable  to  obtrude  these  modern  critical 
results  upon  the  Church,  or  to  draw  those  who  are  not  theo- 
logians into  the  labyrinth  of  Pentateuchal  analysis.  With- 
out knowledge  of  the  original  Hebrew,  an  independent  judg- 
ment about  these  questions  is  quite  impossible.  Indeed, 
Wellliausen's  sagacity  is  as  great  as  his  frivolity.  Young 
scholars,  but  not  mature  ones,  are  fascinated  by  him.  There 
are  elements  of  truth  in  the  new  phase  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment criticism ;  but  the  procedure  of  sifting  has  scarcely 
begun. 

8.  "  It  is  true  that  the  Mosaic  legislation  had  its  history, 
and  that  the  codification  of  its  parts  was  executed  succes- 
sively. But  the  reconstruction  of  this  history  is  very  diffi- 
cult, and  perhaps  impossible.  It  is  enough  that  the  law  has 
the  very  character  which  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  de- 
scribes. Our  Lord  is  its  end,  and  He  has  balanced  the  ac- 
count book  with  his  blood.  Moses  and  his  Elohists  and 
Jehovists  are  like  shadows  which  disappear  before  the 
Word  which  is  made  flesh." 

Sucli  is  an  authoritative  statement  of  the  position 
of  the  foremost  critic  of  the  Old  Testament  in  Ger- 
many. I  suppose  no  one  would  place  any  member  of 
the  extreme  left  wing  on  as  high  a  plane  as  Delitzsch 
in  the  matter  of  learning,  candor,  and  large  experi- 
ence in  Old  Testament  criticism.  You  say  Delitzsch 
has  not  always  exhibited  entire  candor.  For  in- 
stance, his  commentaries  speak  of  Isaiah  as  if  it  were 
all  written  by  one  author,  while  he  is  said  to  give  his 


106  OCCIDENT. 

classes  authority  to  suppose  that  his  opinion  now  is 
that  there  Avas  a  Deutero-Isaiah.  I  have  heard  some 
of  Delitzsch's  pupils  criticise  him  for  not  making 
changes  in  the  stereotyped  plates  of  his  commentaries 
issued  some  years  ago ;  but  Delitzsch  knows  very 
well  that  when  he  makes  an  important  statement 
in  his  class-room  all  specialists  in  his  department 
throughout  Europe  will  promptly  hear  of  it.  He 
knows  he  cannot  put  before  his  class  his  fresh  opin- 
ions without  scholars  throughout  Christendom  very 
soon  learning  what  they  are.  His  newer  views  are 
discussed  in  his  articles  in  current  theological  maga- 
zines. I  think  it  unfair  to  accuse  him  of  vacillation 
or  want  of  candor  because  he  has  not  changed  the 
stereotyped  plates  of  his  works.  In  his  maturest 
years,  he  is  a  man  of  fresh  spirit.  He  commands 
naturally  the  enthusiastic  loyalty  of  youth  among 
his  students.  Always  abreast  of  the  most  advanced 
of  serious  scholars  on  his  themes,  he  is  quite  willing 
to  make  changes  in  his  opinions,  if  required  by  evi- 
dence to  do  so,  and  all  this  is  a  ground  of  confidence 
in  him  rather  than  the  reverse. 

In  order  that  you  may  have  fairly  before  you  both 
his  concessions  to  the  critics  and  the  limitations  he 
puts  on  their  theories  I  have  endeavored  to  sum- 
marize, in  four  propositions,  the  essential  points  of 
difference  between  Delitzsch  and  the  left  wine  of 
critics  of  the  Old  Testament. 

1.  The  Pentateuch  has  been  correctly  analyzed 
into  the  work  of  at  least  four  different  hands;  but 
what  the  modern  critics  say  as  to  the  age  of  the  dif- 
ferent documents  composing  it  is  quite  uncertain. 


DELITZSCH    ON   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT.         107 

2.  The  so-called  higher  criticism  has,  perhaps, 
proved  that  many  of  the  laAVS  found  in  the  Pen- 
tateuch arose  gradually,  according  to  the  needs  of 
the  people  ;  and  it  is  certain  that  Ezra,  about  B.  c. 
444,  had  a  hand  in  their  codification  ;  but  it  cannot 
be  admitted  that  the  Priests'  Code,  including  the 
statements  as  to  the  giving  of  the  law  on  Sinai,  is 
the  work  of  the  free  invention  of  the  latest  date, 
which  takes  on  the  artificial  appearance  of  history. 

3.  The  chronological  order  in  which  the  documents 
arose  has  probably  been  correctly  described  as,  first 
the  Jehovistic,  and  next  the  Elohistic  portions  ;  but 
the  law  of  Ezekiel  xl.-xlviii.  is  not  prior  to  the 
Priests'  Code  of  Exodus,  as  the  critics  maintain,  but 
subsequent  to  it. 

4.  There  is  a  certain  amount  of  real  learning  en- 
listed on  the  side  of  the  rationalistic  criticism  ;  but 
it  is  governed  by  foregone  conclusions ;  it  is  funda- 
mentally anti  -  super n  aturalistic  ;  and  so  its  results 
are  arbitrary,  and  reached  in  advance  of  investiga- 
tion. 

Students  of  this  subject  should  be  referred  to  a  se- 
ries of  very  careful  articles  lately  published  by  De- 
litzsch  in  Luthardt's  ''  Zeitschrift,"  and  largely  trans- 
lated by  Professor  Curtiss,  of  Chicago,  in  this  country. 
I  can  commend  most  conscientiously  Professor  Cur- 
tiss's  elaborate  article  in  the  "  Presbyterian  Review  " 
for  October,  1882,  on  Delitzsch's  position  as  to  the 
ncAV  criticism  of  the  Old  Testament.  (See,  also,  sev- 
eral other  highly  valuable  articles  in  the  "  Presby- 
terian Review"  and  the  "Biblotheca  Sacra  "  for  1882 
and  1883  on  Old  Testament  Criticism,  and  most  es- 


108  OCCIDENT. 

pecially,  Professor  Green's  *'  Moses  and  the  Propli- 
ets.") 

Professor  Ciirtiss  puts  the  whole  complex  matter 
very  vigorously  and  clearly  before  his  readers  in  this 
article  ;  and  his  opinions,  as  all  scholars  here  know, 
are  sufficiently  conservative  on  this  topic.  Professor 
Curtiss  is  even  more  conservative  than  Delitzsch, 
who  has  been  his  great  master,  and  who,  as  I  hap- 
pen to  know,  is  exceediugl}^  proud,  as  with  justice 
he  may  be,  of  the  work  of  his  American  pupil. 

If  you  will  bear  with  me  once  for  all,  I  will  sum- 
marize the  position  which,  according  to  my  judg- 
ment, may  now  be  safely  taken  as  to  the  new  criti- 
cism of  the  Old  Testament. 

1.  It  is  indisputable  that  the  Pentateuch  teaches 
ethical  monotheism  and  inculcates  a  pure  spiritual 
worship. 

2.  Even  if  it  were  shown  that  the  documents  com- 
posing it  were  possessed  in  common  by  many  of  the 
nations  among  Avhich  the  Hebrews  had  their  origin, 
the  fact  would  remain  incontrovertible,  that  these 
populations  were  predominantly  polytheistic  and  de- 
voted to  a  corru23t  form  of  worship. 

3.  The  documents,  therefore,  must  be  supposed  to 
have  been  purified  from  polytheism  and  other  false 
doctrines,  before  they  were  made  a  part  of  the  Pen- 
tateuch ;  and  this  cleansing  of  them,  in  a  barbaric 
age,  from  adulterate  eleiv.ents  which  poison  them  in 
their  Chaldean  and  Babylonian  form,  is  one  proof  of 
their  inspiration. 

4.  The  inspiration  of  the  Pentateuch  in  regard  to 
religious  things  would  not  be  disproved  by  showing 


DELITZSCH   ON   THE   OLD    TESTAMENT.  109 

that  it  was  made  up  according  to  the  documentary 
theory  of  the  critics. 

5.  The  new  criticism  of  the  Old  Testament  raises 
a  question  not  as  to  the  fact,  but  as  to  the  manner, 
of  inspiration.  This  discussion  does  not,  therefore, 
touch  fundamental  points  ;  for  the  question  as  to  the 
manner  of  inspiration  is  not  one  between  believers 
and  unbelievers,  but  between  Christians  themselves. 

The  churches  differ  in  their  theory  as  to  the  man- 
ner of  inspiration,  although  they  agree  as  to  the  cer- 
tainty of  the  fact.  Do  not  think  I  underrate  the 
difference  between  a  low  and  a  high  theory  of  inspi- 
ration ;  but  a  discussion  as  to  the  mere  manner  of 
it  is  of  almost  infinitely  less  consequence  than  a  dis- 
cussion as  to  the  fact ;  and  a  discussion  as  to  the  fact 
of  inspiration  is  of  far  less  consequence  than  a  discus- 
sion as  to  the  fact  of  revelation. 

6.  The  churches  at  large,  therefore,  need  not  be 
drawn  into  the  labyrinth  of  Old  Testament  criti- 
cism ;  for  the  practical  issues  involved  in  it  do  not 
affect  the  chief  matters  of  the  Christian  faith. 

7.  The  theory  that  Ezra  is  the  really  responsible 
author  of  the  Pentateuch  does  not  account  for  the 
literature  which  is  admitted  to  have  existed  before 
Ezra's  time,  and  which  presupposes  the  existence  of 
the  chief  portions  of  the  Mosaic  law,  and  especially 
of  the  Decalogue.  Such  literature  is  found  in  the 
Song  of  Deborah  (Judges  v.),  and  in  the  writings 
of  the  earlier  prophets,  such  as  Amos  ii.  10 ;  Hosea 
xii.  13  ;  Micah  yi.  4  and  vii.  15 ;  and  in  Psalms  viii., 
xiv.,  xvi.,  xix.,  which  are  authentically  ascribed  to 
David.     The  spiritual  elevation  of  the  Psalms  im- 


110  OCCIDENT. 

plies  a  training  receiyed  from  a  previously  existing 
Decalogue. 

My  friends,  let  this  topic  burst  upon  you  like  the 
welling  forth  of  a  spring  of  crystalline  water  from 
the  mountain  side  ;  and  perhaps  by  sudden  onset  it 
will  master  you,  and  give  you  peaceful  convictions 
in  the  midst  of  all  the  tumult  of  discussion.  What 
do  we  know  about  the  Psalms  ?  Some  of  them  were 
not  written  by  David ;  but  the  most  of  them  were. 
They  came  into  existence,  large  numbers  of  them, 
before  Ezra's  time.  Who  can  explain  the  Psalms, 
without  supposing  a  moral  law  like  the  Decalogue 
going  before  them,  and  leading  Israel  to  those  heights 
of  spiritual  experience  which  the  poetry  of  David  ex- 
presses ?  The  world  has  not  reached  similar  heights 
since,  except  in  a  very  few  cases,  in  which  Chris- 
tianity has  been  the  source  of  the  elevation.  What 
accounts  for  the  bursting  into  history  of  these  Psalms 
if  you  do  not  suppose  a  mighty  spiritual  experience 
going  before  them  in  the  history  of  Israel  ?  A  law 
awakening  the  soul  to  spiritual  sensitiveness,  and 
making  the  writing  of  these  Psalms  possible,  must 
have  existed  for  generations  before  their  date.  The 
great  Psalms,  the  oldest,  are  something  that  cannot 
be  explained  at  all,  unless  you  suppose  a  great  spirit- 
ual training  in  the  previous  history  of  Israel.  Da- 
vid's Psalms  presuppose  the  Decalogue,  both  psycho- 
logically and  historically. 

8.  The  theory  that  Ezra  is  responsible  for  the 
Pentateuch  does  not  account  for  the  figure  and  in- 
fluence of  Moses  as  delineated  in  the  Old  Testament 
at  large. 


DELITZSCH   ON    THE   OLD   TESTAMENT.  Ill 

Anti  -  siipernaturalistic  critics  attacked  the  New 
Testament;  but  what  they  could  not  explain  was 
the  figure  of  the  Apostle  Paul  moving  through  the 
first  century,  and  founding  churches  from  side  to  side 
of  the  Roman  Empire,  and  filling  them  with  a  faith 
and  life  which  lifted  heathenism  off  its  hinges  and 
turned  the  course  of  the  dolorous  and  accursed  ages 
into  new  channels.  What  they  could  not  explain 
was  the  character  of  our  Lord  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment literature.  There  it  stands,  and,  as  I  heard 
Professor  Peabody,  of  Harvard  University,  say,  the 
starting  forth  on  the  historic  canvas  of  such  a  pic- 
ture as  that,  under  the  fingers  of  such  unskilled 
limners  as  the  fishermen  of  Galilee,  is  proof  of  its 
historical  reality ;  and  its  historical  reality  is  proof 
of  its  divinity. 

Just  so  the  new  criticism  of  the  Old  Testament 
is  disturbed  by  the  presence  of  the  colossal  historic 
figure  which  we  call  Moses.  There  is  the  picture 
in  the  Old  Testament  writings.  It  cannot  be  elimi- 
nated from  them.  It  is  a  consistent  painting  of  char- 
acter. There  must  have  been  a  cause  bringing  that 
painting  into  existence.  If  the  Pentateuch  is  a  piece 
of  scrap  work,  if  it  was  patched  together  by  this 
editor  and  that,  and  did  not  take  its  present  final 
form  until  the  time  of  Ezra,  how  are  you  to  account 
for  the  reverence  shown  for  the  memory  of  Moses  in 
the  earliest  Psalms  ?  How  are  you  to  account  for 
the  zeal  of  the  early  prophets  before  the  period  of  the 
exile  ?  How  are  you  to  account  for  the  reverence  of 
all  ages  subsequent  to  Moses  for  his  historic  character 
as  described  in  the  Pentateuch?     Moses  is  utterly 


112  OCCIDENT. 

inexplicable ;  tliis  picture  of  liim  in  tlie  Old  Testa- 
ment writings  is  without  adequate  cause,  on  the  sup- 
position that  he  is  simply  a  figure  which  the  bits  of 
colored  glass  in  the  kaleidoscope  of  fragmentary  doc- 
uments have  formed  by  accident,  as  pious  fiction  has 
turned  them  over  and  over.  The  kaleidoscopic  ex- 
planation of  the  origin  of  the  picture  of  the  charac- 
ter of  ]Moses  is  utterly  unscientific.  Nothing  but  anti- 
supernaturalistic  prejudice  can  make  the  so-called 
critical  school  appear  in  this  matter  as  anything 
other  than  a  merely  and  most  arbitrarily  conjectural 
school. 

9.  The  extreme  of  the  left  wing  of  the  conjectu- 
ral school  reduces  a  great  part  of  the  history  of  the 
Pentateuch  to  pious  fiction,  the  composition  of  which 
cannot  be  made  consistent  with  common  honesty  or 
common  sense. 

Wellhausen  has  this  atrocious  passage  in  his  article 
on  Israel  in  the  ''Encyclopaedia  Britannica:"  "The 
giving  of  the  law  at  Sinai  has  only  a  formal,  not 
to  say  a  dramatic  significance.  It  is  the  product  of 
the  poetic  necessity  for  such  a  representation  of  the 
manner  in  which  the  people  was  constituted  Jeho- 
vah's people  as  should  appear  directly  and  graph- 
ically to  the  imagination.  Only  so  can  we  justly 
interpret  these  expressions  according  to  which  Jeho- 
vah with  his  own  mouth  thundered  the  Ten  Com- 
mandments down  from  the  mountain  to  the  people 
below,  and  afterward,  for  forty  days,  held  a  confiden- 
tial conference  with  Moses  alone  on  the  summit. 
For  the  sake  of  producing  a  solemn  and  vivid  im- 
pression, that  is  represented  as  having  taken  place  in 


DELITZSCH  ON  THE   OLD   TESTAMENT.  113 

a  single  tlirilling  moment,  which,  in  reality,  occurred 
slowly  and  almost  unobserved." 

10.  The  theory  here  opposed  is  inconsistent  with 
the  representations  of  the  New  Testament  that  Moses 
was  the  author  of  the  law.  The  supernatural  origin 
of  the  Mosaic  legislation,  and  especially  of  the  Dec- 
alogue, is  affirmed  by  our  Lord  himself. 

What  was  the  opinion  of  our  Lord  and  Saviour 
concerning  the  Old  Testament  ?  His  opinion  ought 
to  be  ours.  I  know  that  careless  men  have  sometimes 
quoted  our  Lord's  sayings  concerning  the  Psalms  to 
prove  that  all  the  Psalms  were  written  by  David. 
That  would  be  an  unwarranted  use  of  his  language. 
So  I  believe  we  cannot  prove  from  his  language  that 
the  whole  account  of  Moses  was  written  by  Moses  ; 
for  it  contains  the  account  of  his  death,  and  he  could 
not  have  written  that.  Any  theory  of  the  Old  Tes- 
tament inconsistent  with  the  Divine  inculcation  of 
our  Lord  himself  must  be  pronounced  unhistoric  and 
unscientific,  as  it  is  surely  antibiblical.  Moses  is 
named  eighty  times  in  the  New  Testament,  and, 
among  these,  twenty-four  times  as  the  author,  and 
fifteen  times  as  the  writer,  of  the  whole  or  a  part  of 
the  law.  (See  "  British  and  Foreign  Evangelical  Re- 
view," No.  ciii.  p.  113.) 

11.  The  central  historical  error  of  the  rationalistic 
critics  is  in  supposing  that  the  non-execution  of  a  law 
proves  its  non-existence. 

Luther  led  the  Reformation ;  and,  as  has  been  sug- 
gested by  many  a  disputant  on  this  theme,  it  would 
be  easy,  on  the  principles  of  the  new  school,  to  prove 
that  Luther  wrote  the  New  Testament.     Ezra  wrote 


114  OCCIDENT. 

the  Pentateuch,  forsooth !  The  chief  of  the  laws  in 
the  Pentateuch  did  not  exist  in  ages  when  we  have 
no  proof  of  their  observance !  Then  we  may,  per- 
haps, prove  that  Luther  wrote  the  Epistle  to  the 
Romans,  and  especially  the  one  to  the  Galatians, 
which  was  his  chief  weapon  in  the  time  of  the  Ref- 
ormation. The  New  Testament  seems  to  have  been 
forgotten  in  the  Dark  Ages  for  a  long  while ;  and,  if 
the  non-observance  of  a  law  proves  its  non-existence, 
then  the  New  Testament  was  not  in  existence  in  the 
Dark  Ages,  or  at  least  large  portions  of  it  were  not. 

12.  Many  questions  as  to  the  structure  of  the  Old 
Testament  writings  cannot  be  settled  until  our  knowl- 
edge of  Assyriology,  and  especially  of  Egyptology, 
has  progressed  further.  They  must  await  the  ad- 
vance of  historical  and  archaeological  science,  and 
should  not  be  answered  on  exegetical  grounds  alone. 

Professor  Lenormant,  author  of  a  recent  book  en- 
titled "  The  Beginnings  of  History,"  is  a  devout  Cath- 
olic, but  he  is  at  the  same  time  a  thorough  scholar 
in  archaeology.  He  holds  that  the  day  has  not  come 
yet  for  a  final  criticism  of  the  Old  Testament ;  and 
well  may  he  do  so  Avhen  our  theories  are  every  year 
being  revolutionized  as  to  secular  history  by  the  un- 
covering of  ancient  cities.  The  general  progress  of 
arclueological  knowledge  has  caused  again  and  again 
a  revision  of  old  positions.  As  we  study  Babylon 
and  Chaldea  at  large,  as  we  study  Egypt,  we  are 
likely  to  obtain  information  that  will  make  archseo- 
logical  science  possible  on  Old  Testament  grounds. 
It  was  only  yesterday,  as  it  seems  to  me,  that  I  was 
standing  in  the  Boulak   Museum  in  Cairo,  looking 


DELITZSCH   ON   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT.  115 

into  tlie  face  of  a  mummy,  said  to  be  that  of  the  king 
that  oppressed  the  children  of  Israel  in  ancient  Egypt, 
It  is  only  yesterday,  as  it  were,  scholars  began  to  feel 
sure  that  there  are  relics  yet  left  in  Egypt  that  may 
illuminate  the  period  of  the  Exodus.  It  is  only  yes- 
terday that  we  obtained  possession  of  what  is  now 
called  the  Chaldean  account  of  the  Deluge.  What  is 
the  tendency  of  all  these  discoveries  ?  Herodotus 
used  to  be  sneered  at  as  untrustworthy ;  but  no  man 
sneers  at  him  to-day.  The  general  result  of  the 
progress  of  archaeological  knowledge  in  Egyptology 
and  Assyriology  has  been  to  substantiate  the  grand 
facts  of  the  Old  Testament  history.  This  tendency 
is  so  striking  that  we  may  stand  upon  archaeology  in 
its  present  state  in  making  our  reply  to  the  extreme 
left  of  the  new  criticism  of  the  Old  Testament.  Pro- 
fessor Lenormant  admits  that  the  Pentateuch  may 
have  been  made  up  by  a  combination  of  documents  ; 
but  he  finds  proof  of  its  inspiration  in  the  purifica- 
tion of  these  documents  from  polytheism  and  all  in- 
culcations of  idolatry  and  other  false  doctrines.  He 
sees  in  the  winnoAving  of  these  books  proof  that  God 
was  behind  their  composition. 

There  is  a  bell  in  the  Cathedral  of  Cologne  made 
by  the  melting  together  of  French  cannon.  It  would 
be  a  very  difficult  task  indeed  to  analyze  that  bell 
and  determine  whence  the  cannon  came.  Something 
like  this,  however,  is  the  task  before  those  who  adopt 
the  extreme  theories  of  the  rationalistic  critics  of  the 
Pentateuch.  In  the  minute  literary  traits  of  this 
series  of  documents,  it  must  be  supposed  possible  to 
find  the  lost  dates  of  their  origin,  of  their  combina- 


116  OCCIDENT. 

tion,  and  of  subsequent  editorial  revisions.  But  what 
if  this  vague  and  fanciful  search  were  successful? 
Even  if  it  be  granted  that  documents  draw^n  from 
many  polytheistic  nations  and  ages  were  the  original 
constituents  of  the  Pentateuch,  we  have  not  touched 
the  question  as  to  the  inspiration  of  the  combined 
mass  at  all.  The  mass  is  strangely  purified  from  all 
false  doctrine.  A  divine  fire  has  burned  all  adulter- 
ate elements  out  of  it,  and  fused  the  constituents  in 
a  combination  wholly  new.  Metallic  fragments  are 
one  set  of  objects ;  melted  together  into  a  bell  and 
hung  in  a  cathedral  tower  they  are  another  object 
altogether.  Mere  white  dust  is  one  thing ;  com- 
pacted into  marble,  in  a  vase,  it  has  a  ring,  and  is 
quite  another.  The  cannon,  melted  and  hung  aloft 
in  the  form  of  a  bell,  are  no  longer  cannon.  They 
are  an  inspired  work.  It  is  our  privilege,  indeed,  to 
learn  all  we  can  as  to  the  composition  of  this  bronze  ; 
but  our  highest  business  is  to  ring  the  bell  in  the 
cathedral  tower.  The  moral  law  and  the  ethical 
monotheism  of  the  Pentateuch  have  proved  their  re- 
sonance as  often  as  they  have  been  rightly  used  age 
after  age.  The  Pentateuch,  hung  in  the  cathedral 
tower  of  the  world,  has  uttered  God's  voice ;  and  our 
most  pressing  duty  is  to  ring  the  bell  loudly  in  the 
heights  of  history,  rather  than  to  inquire,  with  idle 
curiosity,  how  it  originated  by  the  melting  together 
of  many  fragments. 


IV. 

PROFESSOR   ZOLLNER'S  VIEWS  ON  SPIR- 
ITUALISM, 

WITH  A  PRELUDE   ON 

THE  VANGUARDS   OF   CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS. 

THE   ONE    HUNDRED   AND    FIFTY-FOURTH    LECTURE    IN   THE 

BOSTON   MONDAY    LECTURESHIP,    DELIVERED    IN 

TREMONT   TEMPLE,   JANUARY   29,  1883, 


"  Turn,  turn,  mv  wheel.     All  life  is  brief ; 
What  now  is  bud  will  soon  be  leaf. 
The  Wind  blows  east,  the  Wind  blows  west ; 
The  blue  eggs  in  the  robin's  nest 
Will  soon  have  wings  and  beak  and  breast." 

LoNGFELLOAV,  Kevamos. 

"  It  is  Christ  who  rules  British  India,  and  not  the  British  Govern- 
ment. It  is  not  the  British  army  that  deserves  any  honor  for  con- 
quering India.  If  unto  any  army  appertains  the  honor  of  holding 
India  for  P3ngland,  that  army  is  the  army  of  Christian  Missionaries. 
Their  devotion,  their  self-abnegation,  their  philanthropy,  their  love 
of  God,  their  attachment  and  allegiance  to  the  truth,  all  these  have 
found  and  will  continue  to  find  a  deep  place  in  the  gratitude  of  my 
countrymen.  They  have  brought  unto  us  Christ."  —  Keshub  Chun- 
DEK  Sex,  Lectures  in  India,  pp.  280,  281. 


"Die  Verniinftelei,  dass  Wunder  jetzt  nicht  mehr  nothig  seien, 
ist  Aumassung  urosserer  Einsicht  als  ein  Mensch  sich  wohl  zutrauen 
8oU."  —  Kant,  Werke,  ed.  Rosenkranz,  x,  100. 

"  Portentum  ergo  fit  non  contra  naturam  sed  contra  quam  est  nota 
natura."  —  St.  Augustine,  De  Civitate  Dei,  xxi.  8. 


PRELUDE    IV. 

THE  YANGUARDS   OF   CHEISTIAN  IVHSSIONS. 

All  that  united  Protestant  Christendom  together 
gives  annually  for  missions  would  not  pay  the  liquor 
bill  of  the  United  States  for  three  days,  nor  that  of 
the  British  Islands  for  two.  At  the  opening  of  the 
century  all  Protestant  Christendom  expended  only 
$250,000  annually  for  missions.  It  expends  to-day 
$7,500,000  for  that  purpose.  This  is  a  large  amount, 
you  think.  It  is  a  bagatelle.  The  dissipations  of 
Saratogas  and  Newports  and  Brightons  would  hardly 
find  this  sum  worth  mentioning  in  the  hugeness  of 
their  expenses  for  self-gratification.  The  churches 
are  penurious  toward  missions.  We  pride  ourselves 
on  having  paid  off  great  debts,  and  on  having  received 
large  legacies  for  missionary  organizations.  Possibly 
we  shall  be,  as  Ernest  Renan  says,  "  an  amusing  cen- 
tury to  future  centuries."  One  of  the  things  that  will 
amuse  our  successors  on  this  planet  will  undoubtedly 
be  our  unwarranted  self-complacency  in  this  day  of 
small  things  in  missions.  In  China  there  is  now  not  i 
an  ordained  missionary  for  a  million  people.  In  the 
population  accessible  to  the  American  Board  there 
is  as  yet  only  one  missionary  for  some  700,000  in- 
habitants. Modern  Christendom  has  thrown  one  peb- 
ble into  the  great  ocean  of  missionary  effort,  and 


120  OCCIDENT. 

stands  vr'ith  an  amused  childish  conceit  on  the  shore 
of  history  watching  the  Avide  ripples  produced  by  that 
pebble,  and  supposes  that  it  is  reforming  the  world. 
Another  century  will  sneer  at  us  for  our  conceit  and 
our  penuiiousness. 

The  pillar  of  fire,  which  is  the  supernatural  van- 
guard of  Christian  missions,  is  the  biblical  truth 
that  men  are  to  be  judged  by  the  deeds  done  in  the 
body.  Because  I  do  not  believe  that  we  are  to  be 
judged  by  the  deeds  done  in  any  intermediate  state, 
I  do  believe  in  missions  to  all  men  in  their  present 
state.  Because  I  do  not  believe  in  probation  after 
death,  I  do  believe  in  sending  missions  to  all  men 
before  their  death.  Whoever  does  not  attain  sim- 
ilarity of  feeling  with  God  cannot  be  at  peace  in  his 
presence.  In  nominally  Christian  lands  and  in  pa- 
gan countries,  there  are  millions  of  Avhom  the  cool 
judgment  of  science  must  be  that  they  are  acquiring 
a  character  dissimilar  to  that  of  God.  They  are 
living  in  the  love  of  what  God  hates,  and  in  the 
hate  of  what  God  loves.  These  postures  of  soul  / 
tend  to  become  permanent.  It  is  self-evident  that, 
without  deliverance  from  the  love  of  sin  and  the 
guilt  of  it,  there  can  be  no  salvation ;  but,  it  is  in- 
disputable that  uncounted  multitudes  of  our  race, 
from  not  beholding  God  as  He  is  revealed  in  the 
gospels,  are  failing  to  obtain  this  double  deliver- 
ance. It  is  a  truth  of  Scripture,  as  well  as  of  ethical 
science,  that  the  blood  of  my  brother  may  cleave  to 
my  skirts  if  I  have  light  which  he  needs  vitally  and 
do  not  communicate  it  to  him.  All  these  facts  are 
visible  in  the  coolest  scientific  view  of  the  ethical 
condition  of  the  nations. 


THE   VANGUAEDS   OF   CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS.      121 

It  would  not  be  necessary  for  me  to  open  the 
Scriptures  to  make  myself  zealous  to  advance  mis- 
sions, because  the  philanthropic  attitude  of  mind  is 
enough  to  arouse  the  soul  to  this  duty.  There  are 
three  hundred  millions  of  women  now  on  this  planet 
who  have  only  the  Buddhist  hope  of  being  born 
again  as  men  instead  of  toads  or  snakes.  There  are 
eighty  millions  of  women  in  Moslem  harems.  There 
are  myriads  of  men  and  Avomen  and  children  grow- 
ing up  in  the  most  degraded  superstitions,  and  suf- 
fering in  mind,  body,  and  estate,  from  inherited  pa- 
gan customs.  In  the  name  of  mere  philanthropy 
and  secular  prudence,  Christian  missions  ought  to  re- 
ceive a  support,  immediate,  abundant,  permanent,  un- 
flinching. 

After  a  tour  around  the  globe,  during  which  I  met 
personally  more  than  two  hundred  missionaries,  how 
shall  I  summarize  what  to  me,  meditating  often  on 
this  theme  in  solitude  and  in  company,  by  sea  and 
by  land,  appear  to  be  the  more  important  facts,  ex- 
hibiting our  present  duty  toward  Christian  missions 
throughout  the  world  ? 

1.  In  Bengal  alone,  out  of  a  population  of  sixty- 
three  millions,  there  are,  according  to  Dr.  W.  W. 
Hunter,  the  government  statistician  of  the  Indian 
Empire,  ten  millions  who  suffer  hunger  whenever  the 
harvest  falls  short,  and  thirteen  millions  who  do  not 
know  the  feeling  of  a  full  stomach,  except  in  the 
mango  season.  ("  England's  Work  in  India,"  by 
W.  W.  Hunter,  LL.  D.,  London,  1881,  p.  78.) 

Apparent  poverty  is  not  always  real  poverty  in 
Asia.    Under  the  old  East  India  Company  there  was 


122  OCCIDENT. 

sent  to  Calcutta  once  a  committee  of  judges,  to  make 
investigations  as  to  the  execution  of  the  queen's  de- 
sires in  regard  to  civic  affairs.  One  of  the  judges,  as 
he  landed  on  the  banks  of  the  Hooghly,  saw  multi- 
tudes of  people,  without  shoes  and  stockings  and 
very  thinly  clad.  He  turned  and  said  to  his  asso- 
ciate :  ''  My  brother,  behold  the  sad  effects  of  tyr- 
anny. Before  we  have  been  conducting  our  investi- 
gation six  months,  I  hope  these  multitudes  will  all 
be  comfortably  clad  in  shoes  and  stockings."  Such  a 
misconception  as  this  is  ludicrous  to  the  last  degree. 
Under  the  tropics  poverty  does  not  look  as  it  does 
with  us.  But,  when  you  think  of  families  in  South- 
ern India  whose  entire  income  is  fifteen  dollars  a 
year ;  when  you  think  of  families  in  China  who  re- 
gard themselves  as  ver}^  well  off  if  they  have  sixty 
dollars  a  year ;  when  you  think  of  poor  widows  in 
India  and  China  subsisting  on  grains  and  roots,  with 
only  a  half  dollar  a  month  ;  when  you  think  what 
any  considerable  failure  of  the  harvest  may  do  in 
India  and  China,  sending  millions  to  death  through 
famine,  you  must  perceive  that  poverty,  in  spite  of 
all  the  qualifications  that  are  to  be  put  upon  our 
ideas  when  transferred  to  the  East,  is  one  of  the 
kings  of  terror  in  the  Orient. 

2.  In  populations  poverty  stricken  and  often  fam- 
ished, the  American  Board  of  Commissioners  for  For- 
eign Missions,  almost  alone  among  the  missionary 
managing  bodies  of  the  world,  is  insisting  on  large 
or  complete  self-support  by  the  native  churches. 

In  Bombay,  Calcutta,  Madras,  Canton,  Fuhchau, 
Shanghai,  Kobe,  Kioto,  Tokio,  and  Yokohama,  ten 


THE  VANGUARDS   OF  CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS.      123 

representative  cities  of  Asia,  it  was  my  fortune  to 
put  to  large  gatherings  of  missionaries  of  all  denom- 
inations and  nationalities  a  series  of  questions  on  the 
religious  condition  of  India,  China,  and  Japan,  and, 
among  them,  this  inquiry  :  "  Ought  native  Christians 
to  be  encouraged  and  instructed  to  give  a  tenth  of 
their  income  to  the  support  of  their  churches  ? " 
With  not  half  a  dozen  exceptions  in  at  least  a  hun- 
dred cases,  missionaries  outside  the  field  of  the  Amer- 
ican Board  replied :  "  No,  not  yet ;  "  but  missionaries 
inside  the  field  of  the  American  Board  said:  "  Yes ;" 
and  so  did  the  foremost  of  their  pupils  and  converts. 
One  evening  in  Bombay,  the  second  city  of  the  Brit- 
ish Empire  (for  Bombay  is  now  larger  than  Calcutta, 
or  than  Glasgow  or  Liverpool),  I  was  putting  a  series 
of  written  questions  to  a  company  of  missionaries 
and  civilians,  and  this  question  about  self  -  support 
was  among  the  inquiries.  Scotch  and  English  mis- 
sionaries, one  after  the  other,  rose  and  opposed  such 
a  pressure  as  is  brought  to  bear  on  native  churches 
by  instructing  them  to  give  a  tenth  of  their  income 
for  the  support  of  their  pastor ;  but,  finally,  uprose  a 
converted  Brahmin  from  out  of  the  field  of  the  Amer- 
ican  Board,  and,  in  the  most  incisive,  almost  classic 
English,  almost  turned  the  feeling  of  the  company  in 
favor  of  the  American  plan.  I  had  a  similar  experi- 
ence in  many  a  city,  and  I  found  the  converts,  espe- 
cially the  most  intelligent  of  them,  quite  as  emphatic 
in  defending  this  system  of  self-support  as  the  mis- 
sionaries of  the  American  Board  themselves. 

3.  The  American  Board  has  the  high  respect  of 
all  other  missionary  bodies,  because  it  leads  them  all, 


124  occroENT. 

unless  we  except  William  Taylor's  missions,  in  ap- 
plying the  principle  of  self-support.  This  Board  is 
thought  by  its  compeers  in  India  and  China  to  push 
this  principle  almost  to  an  extreme,  and  is  even  crit- 
icised as  too  economical  in  regard  to  schools,  church 
buildings,  and  the  houses  of  missionaries. 

It  has  been  my  fortune  to  be  a  guest  in  many  mis- 
sionary centres,  and  I  have  usually  found  that  Scotch 
and  English  and  German  mission  stations  appeared  to 
be  much  better  equipped  with  means  of  giving  a  guest 
comfort  for  a  night  or  two  than  the  missions  under 
the  American  Board.  I  have  met  American  mission- 
aries of  the  Presbyterian  and  of  the  Methodist  type 
apparently  much  richer  than  those  of  the  American 
Board.  You  say  that,  for  once,  at  least,  I  am  speak- 
ing like  a  Congregationalist,  and  am  defending  the 
managers  of  the  missions  of  my  own  denomination. 
It  is  natural  that  I  should  do  so,  because  they  have 
been  recently  assailed  for  wasting  the  funds  of  the 
churches.  I  know  that,  in  comparison  with  many 
other  boards,  they  have  been  penurious.  I  know 
that  they  have  pinched  noble  men  and  women  in 
their  efforts  in  Asia,  in  order  that  they  might  not  ex- 
pose themselves  to  the  charge  of  lack  of  economy.  I 
know  that,  if  the  American  Board  deserves  any  crit- 
icism at  all,  it  is  for  being  too  close-fisted.  That  is 
precisely  the  criticism  brought  against  it  by  its  com- 
peers in  Asia.  I  do  not  personally  endorse  this  crit- 
icism;  but,  when  I  hear  men  saying  that  the  Amer- 
ican Board,  the  most  economical  board  on  earth,  is 
wasting  the  funds  of  the  churches,  I  must  be  per- 
mitted, in  the  name  of  ordinajy  candor  and  manH- 


THE  VANGTJAEDS   OF   CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS.      125 

ness,  to  make  a  stern  protest  against  this  absurd 
charge.      [Applause.] 

4.  In  Japan  the  middle  classes  of  the  population 
have  been  reached  to  a  considerable  extent  by  Chris- 
tian missions,  and  not  a  few  native  churches  are  al- 
ready self-supporting.  The  same  is  measurably  true 
in  some  of  the  older  missions  of  Southern  India, 
Egypt,  and  Asia  Minor. 

It  is  an  amazing  circumstance  that,  in  1881,  the 
1,200  church  members  belonging  to  the  missions  of 
the  United  Presbyterian  Board  in  Egypt,  most  of 
them  very  poor  men  and  women,  raised  <£ 4,546,  or 
more  than  ^17  each  for  the  support  of  churches  and 
schools.  The  Baptists,  among  the  Karens,  have  done 
equally  well,  and  have  recently  contributed  money  to 
endow  a  colle2:e.  At  Kioto  I  studied  with  the  keen- 
est  interest  Mr.  Neesima's  collegiate  school,  which 
will  one  day,  I  hope,  become  the  leading  Christian 
university  of  the  Japanese  Empire.  It  contains  at 
present  one  hundred  and  fifty  young  men,  half  of 
Avhom  are  likely  to  become  evangelists  to  their  own 
people.  Beneficiary  foreign  aid  in  this  school  to  stu- 
dents preparing  for  the  ministry  is  very  limited. 
The  membership  of  the  nineteen  native  Japanese 
churches  under  the  care  of  the  American  Board  of 
Missions  is  now  about  one  thousand,  of  whom  more 
than  two  hundred  were  recently  received.  These 
members  have  contributed  for  Christian  purposes 
over  eight  dollars  each,  a  sum,  as  compared  with  the 
price  of  labor,  equal  to  forty  dollars  in  the  United 
States.  ("  Brief  Notes  on  Japan,"  by  the  Rev.  Dr.  J. 
D.  Davis,  of  Kioto.    "Mis.  Her.,"  Feb.,  1883,  p.  54.) 


126  OCCIDENT. 

5.  ^VTien  the  middle  class  is  reached  in  India  at 
large,  and  in  China,  as  fully  as  it  has  been  in  Japan, 
the  native  churches  may  be  expected  to  become  self- 
supporting  in  an  equal  degree  with  those  of  Japan, 
but  not  before. 

It  is  true  that  there  are  churches  in  Japan  that  have 
sent  back  funds  to  the  American  Board  with  the  re- 
mark :  ''  We  need  no  more  assistance."  Why,  then, 
should  funds  be  sent  to  China  and  to  India  ?  The 
case  is  different  in  China  and  in  India  from  that  in 
Japan,  chiefly  because  in  Japan  missions  have  reached 
the  middle  classes  more  thoroughly  than  they  have 
in  China  and  in  India  at  large.  Even  when  native 
churches  undertake  the  support  of  their  own  preach- 
ers large  funds  may  yet  be  needed  from  abroad  for 
schools,  printing-presses,  and  medical  missions. 

6.  The  Christian  churches  of  the  world  should  be 
satisfied  with  nothing  less  than  sending  out  one  or- 
dained missionary  for  every  50,000  of  the  accessible 
pagan  population  of  the  world. 

7.  No  church  ought  to  call  itself  thoroughly  ag- 
gressive and  evangelical  that  does  not  expend  for  the 
support  of  missions  at  large  at  least  one  dollar  for 
every  five  it  expends  on  itself. 

In  the  celebrated  Madura  Mission,  in  South  India, 
probably  the  most  effectively  managed  missionary 
centre  that  I  personally  studied,  this  proportion  of 
laborers  to  the  population  has  been  the  ideal,  never 
attained  indeed,  but  unflinchingly  held  up  as  the 
standard  of  duty.  On  the  plan  of  three  ordained 
missionaries  to  half  a  million  in  the  foreign  field,  and 
one  to  one  thousand  in  the  home  field,  the  whole 


THE  VANGUARDS   OF   CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS.      127 

world  might  be  brought  to  a  knowledge  of  Chris- 
tianity mthin  fifty  years.  I  believe  in  a  native  min- 
istry with  all  my  heart,  mind,  and  strength  ;  but  my 
conviction  is  that  in  a  city  of  50,000  inhabitants, — 
say  one  as  large  as  Springfield  or  Hartford,  —  in  a 
pagan  land,  with  all  the  influences  of  hereditary  mis- 
belief and  custom  opposing  Christianity,  there  ought 
to  be  at  least  one  man  born  and  educated  on  Chris- 
tian shores,  and  representing  sound  views.  What  if 
the  native  ministry  is  so  enlarged  as  to  give  one  re- 
ligious teacher  to  every  thousand  of  the  population 
of  such  a  city  ?  One  missionary  would  have  under 
him,  in  some  sense  as  pupils  or  ecclesiastical  subordi- 
nates for  the  time,  fifty  native  teachers.  That  num- 
ber is  enough  for  one  man  to  oversee  as  a  bishop  of 
souls.  In  several  advanced  mission  fields,  experience 
has  shown  that  the  directing  power  of  the  foreign 
missionaries  was  withdrawn  too  early.  I  hold  up  my 
ideal,  not  as  a  standard  that  we  are  likely  to  reach 
very  soon  in  practice,  but  as  a  proposition  favored 
as  an  ideal  by  the  best  students  and  managers  of 
missions,  and  especially  by  the  ablest  missionaries 
themselves.  The  opinions  of  missionaries  at  the  front 
in  actual  conflict  with  paganism  are  worth  more  than 
those  of  any  other  body  of  men  as  to  what  we  should 
try  to  do  for  the  heathen  world.  Seven  out  of  ten 
of  the  two  hundred  missionaries  I  have  shaken  hands 
with  in  pagan  lands  are  of  the  opinion  that  I  do  not 
put  the  ideal  of  missionary  effort  too  high. 

I  plant  myself  on  these  propositions,  which,  I  be- 
lieve, have  the  approval  of  great  secretaries  of  mis- 
sions :  one  missionary  for  every  50,000  of  the  acces- 


1 28  OCCIDENT. 

sible  pagan  population  of  the  world ;  one  dollar  to  be 
expended  for  missions  for  every  five  dollars  expended 
for  ourselves.  The  foremost  American  authority  on 
missions  said  to  me  :  "  Let  the  churches  expend  for 
missions  one  dollar  for  every  five  they  expend  on 
themselves,  and  we  may  hope  to  put  the  Bible  into 
the  hands  of  every  son  and  daughter  of  the  human 
race  mthin  a  generation." 

8.  At  present,  these  standards  of  effort  are  to  be 
insisted  on  with' the  utmost  urgency;  for  the  size  of 
the  accessible  population  of  the  world  is  increasing 
enormously  out  of  proportion  to  the  increase  of  mis- 
sionary funds  and  laborers. 

Speaking  roundly,  a  man  with  the  Bible  may  go 
anywhere  on  earth,  to-day.  Of  course  there  are  ex- 
ceptions to  this  proposition ;  but  in  the  great  nations 
in  the  semi-civilized  countries  of  the  pagan  world  we 
may  publicly  or  privately  teach  the  gospel  almost 
everywhere. 

9.  Infidelity  is  occupying  the  field  of  the  upper 
and  middle  classes.  Imported  unbelief,  in  many 
quarters  of  India,  China,  and  Japan,  is  as  great  a 
danger  among  educated  native  circles  as  hereditary 
misbelief. 

10.  The  ablest  men  are  needed  at  the  front ;  and 
such  men  have  nowhere  on  earth  to-day  a  wider  op- 
portunity for  usefulness  than  in  the  great  cities  of 
India,  China,  and  Japan. 

11.  Precisely  the  topics  which  are  most  often 
brought  to  the  front  in  the  Occident  in  religious 
discussions  between  Christianity  and  unbelief,  are 
those  which  are  at  the  front  in  the  Orient. 


THE  VANGUARDS   OF   CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS.      129 

12.  When  the  whole  field  is  occupied  on  the  plan 
of  one  missionary  for  every  50,000  of  the  accessible 
population,  the  middle  and  upper  classes  will  be 
reached,  and  the  native  churches  will  naturally  be- 
come self-supporting. 

13.  It  is  evident,  therefore,  that  the  longer  the 
churches  delay  occupying  the  whole  field  in  this 
thorough  manner,  the  longer  will  be  the  effort  needed 
and  the  greater  the  expense  in  the  conquest  of  the 
world. 

14.  Great  expenditures  now  will  make  great  ex- 
penditures for  missions  unnecessary  in  a  near  future ; 
but  small  expenditures  now  may  make  great  expen- 
ditures necessary  through  a  long  future.  Immense 
losses  to  missions  have  often  resulted,  and  may  yet 
result,  from  the  churches  not  taking  possession  of 
critical  hours. 

It  is  difficult  to  calculate  how  terribly  hard  it  will 
be  to  win  educated  circles  in  pagan  lands  to  Chris- 
tianity if  we  allow  infidelity  to  have  its  own  way  in 
them  for  another  generation.  On  this  theme,  the 
Church,  as  a  whole,  is  torpid ;  and  I  would  have  the 
necessity  of  the  case  smite  the  rock  of  our  indiffer- 
ence and  cause  copious  streams  to  gush  forth,  —  not 
of  money  only,  but  of  men. 

We  are  honored  this  morning  by  the  presence  of 
one  of  the  great  statesmen  among  the  secretaries  of 
missions.  I  feel  impelled  to  take  him  by  the  hand 
in  thought ;  I  venture  to  take  him  by  the  hand  in 
reality  [rising  and  taking  the  hand  of  Secretary 
Clark],  and  to  ask  this  assembly  to  unite  with  him 
in  prayer  for  the  whole  world.     Longfellow,  in  the 


130  OCCIDENT. 

last  words  he  ever  wrote,  exactly  described  the  con- 
dition of  our  earth  to-day  :  — 

**  Out  of  the  shadows  of  night 
The  world  rolls  into  light ; 
It  is  daybreak  everywhere." 

God  deliver  us  from  dawdling  at  daybreak  I 


LECTURE   IV. 

PROFESSOR   ZOLLNER'S   VIEWS   ON   SPIRITUALISM. 

Professor  Zollner,  of  Leipsic  University,  is  re- 
garded by  spiritualists  as  their  Newton.  I  purpose 
to  prove  this  morning  that  he  was  not  a  spiritualist', 
but  rather  a  biblical  demon ologist.  I  am  aware  that 
I  am  walking  over  burning  plowshares  ;  but  you  will 
remember  that  I  am  stating  the  opinions  of  others, 
and  not  my  own.  As  to  my  personal  positions,  I 
have  already  had  opportunity  to  be  heard  on  this 
platform,  and  my  sentiments  on  this  topic  are  un- 
changed. I  stand  yet  precisely  in  the  attitude  con- 
cerning this  theme  in  which  I  stood  when,  in  1880,  I 
discussed  spiritualism  as  a  gigantic  perhaps;  as  noth- 
ing more  than  an  if ;  a  hypothesis,  worth,  perhaps, 
some  attention  as  a  means  of  guiding  us  into  knowl- 
edge of  the  unexplored  remainders  of  the  human 
constitution  and  as  a  reply  to  materialism,  but  as 
not  yet  having  reached  the  dignity  of  scientific  proof 
that  spirits,  good  or  evil,  exist  and  now  communicate 
with  men.  I  call  myself  a  vehement  anti-spiritist ; 
for  I  deny  that  there  has  ever  been  given  scientific 
proof  of  the  reality  of  spiritistic  communications  in 
our  day  ;  and  I,  of  course,  deny  the  trustworthiness 
of  any  such  alleged  communications  as  sources  of  re- 
ligious knowledge.     The  man  who  makes  both  these 


132  OCCIDENT. 

denials  is  an  anti-spiritist,  however  anxious  he  may 
be  that  spiritistic  phenomena  should  be  investigated 
for  the  sake  of  putting  an  end  to  enormous  mischief 
in  half-educated  circles. 

On  the  topic  of  what  Professor  Zollner  called 
transcendental  physics,  partisan  feeling  was  rolling 
in  mountain  weaves  in  the  university  life  of  Leipsic 
when  I  visited  that  city.  I  took  much  pains  to  in- 
form myself  as  to  all  sides  of  the  case,  and  was  for- 
tunate enough  to  make  the  personal  acquaintance  of 
t*rofessor  Zollner,  and  of  his  great  opponent.  Profes- 
sor Wundt.  As  to  their  contest,  I  conferred  with 
Professor  Ulrici,  of  Halle,  Professor  Delitzsch  and 
others,  of  Leipsic,  and  many  more  whom  I  do  not 
care,  for  reasons  of  courtesy,  to  name.  Professor  Zoll- 
ner had  been  described  to  me  in  London  by  Slade's 
persecutor,  Dr.  Ray  Lankester,  as  a  recluse,  suffering 
from  a  repulsive  disease  on  one  side  of  his  face,  and 
as  having  few  pupils  and  no  reputation  in  the  Uni- 
versity. After  an  introduction  to  Professor  Zollner, 
I  found  that  this  picture  is  a  highly  colored  partisan 
caricature.  It  is  true  I  was  able  to  buy  photographs 
of  nearly  all  the  other  professors,  but  could  not  find 
a  picture  of  Zollner,  and  so  was  obliged  to  call  on 
the  man  with  no  portrait  of  him  in  my  mind  except 
Lankester's.  I  took  an  English  edition  of  the  Boston 
Monday  Lectures  on  Spiritualism  with  me.  Perhaps 
this  audience  will  allow  me  to  say  that  this  volume, 
which  has  not  yet  been  issued  as  a  book  in  America, 
has  been  quite  carefully  analyzed  again  and  again 
by  conservative  authorities  abroad,  and  that  the  po- 
sitions taken  in  it  on  spiritism   have  not   been  de- 


zollner's  views  on  spiritualism.       133 

nounced.  One  or  two  obscure  conservative  author- 
ities in  this  country  misapprehended  some  of  my  po- 
sitions, and  tried  to  raise  the  cry  of  heresy ;  but  even 
more  conservative  authorities  abroad,  when  they 
have  seen  the  lectures  in  consecutive  order  and  in 
correct  reports,  have  not  been  thus  misled.  In  Cal- 
cutta the  substance  of  this  book  was  circulated  by 
missionaries  as  an  antidote  to  spiritualism  among 
the  Hindus.  Spiritualism  is  Potiphar's  wife,  and  my 
name  is  Joseph.  I  make  this  remark  chiefly  for  the 
benefit  of  the  New  York  "  Observer,"  which  once  had 
in  its  hands  a  certain  coat  of  mine,  and  gravely  and 
slanderously  insisted  that  this  was  the  individual 
himself  who  had  cast  off  the  garment  and  left  it  be- 
hind him,  for  cause. 

Professor  ZoUner  lived  with  his  mother  on  Gellert 
Strasse  in  Leipsic,  a  bachelor,  in  a  stately  house  of 
the  German  style.  In  a  study,  not  palatial,  but 
most  convenient  and  spacious,  he  received  his  vis- 
itor ;  and  the  cordiality  of  the  man,  his  ability,  and 
his  balance  were  noticeable  at  the  first  glance.  He 
speaks  English  with  considerable  freedom  ;  but  our 
conversation  was  chiefly  in  German.  Professor  ZoU- 
ner was  born  in  1834.  He  is  a  man  somewhat  above 
the  medium  height,  rather  thick-set,  of  slightly  stoop- 
ing but  vigorous  shoulders,  head  of  good  size  and 
shape,  brunette  complexion,  dark  eyes,  and  hair  of 
tolerably  fine  texture.  His  predominant  expression 
in  face  and  bearing  is  that  of  a  cheerful,  enthusiastic, 
and  incisive  intellectual  courage.  He  impresses  you 
at  once  as  a  man  of  mental  power,  and  also  as  one 
of  geniality  and  social  warmth.     The  German  words 


134  OCCIDENT. 

Heiterheit  and  GemutJiUchJceit  describe  the  predomi- 
nant moods  which  he  exhibited  when  I  saw  him.  It 
is  true  that  the  right  side  of  his  face  is  enlarged,  and 
the  cheek  and  mouth  look  as  if  he  had  some  object 
of  the  size  of  a  small  apple  between  the  teeth  and 
cheek.  There  is,  however,  little  or  no  discoloration 
of  the  complexion,  and,  so  far  as  I  could  learn,  no 
disease  except  this  enlargement.  His  mother,  other- 
wise a  woman  of  rather  distinguished  appearance, 
has  an  unfortunate  wen  or  tumor  on  the  left  side  of 
her  face.  Why  do  I  go  into  these  matters  ?  Be- 
cause a  man  like  Ray  Lankester  can  stoop  to  an  at- 
tempt to  disgust  you  with  Zollner  by  mentioning 
some  little  personal  defect  with  which  he  was  born. 
In  Professor  Zollner's  conversation  you  soon  forget 
the  blemish  with  which  he  was  brought  into  the 
world.  In  this  photograph  of  him  [showing  a  pic- 
ture] the  likeness  is  so  taken  that  the  unnatural 
shape  of  the  cheek  is  not  prominent.  The  head,  you 
notice,  is  full  and  round  in  all  its  departments,  and 
may  be  fairly  presumed  to  be  the  seat  of  that  bal- 
ance of  faculties  which  we  call  common  sense.  Ray 
Lankester's  picture  of  Zollner,  and  other  pictures  I 
had  had  drawn  of  him  by  his  heated  German  oppo- 
nents, I  came  to  regard  as  mischievously  misleading. 
Among  other  inquiries  which  I  made  of  Professor 
ZoHner  Avas  the  question  what  he  thought  of  various 
recent  German  books  on  spiritism.  I  obtained  from 
liim  a  list  of  German  volumes  on  transcendental 
jjliysics  and  related  themes ;  but  it  was  a  short  one, 
and  I  was  particularly  pleased  to  find  how  well  win- 
nowed it  was.     Even  in  Germany  many  poor  books 


zollnee's  views  ok  spiritualism.       135 

have  been  issued  ;  but  there  is  no  such  deluge  of  rub- 
bish on  this  matter  as  in  England,  and  especially  in 
the  United  States.  After  a  great  deal  of  conversa- 
tion about  German  writers  on  his  themes,  Professor 
Zollner  invited  me  to  call  on  an  American  spiritist 
who  was  then  in  Leipsic,  but  whom  I  shall  not  name 
here.  This  American  had  a  reception  given  him  in 
London  ;  and  no  less  a  man  than  Alfred  Russel  Wal- 
lace, the  great  naturalist,  affirmed  publicly  that  his 
claims  were  worthy  of  attention.  Recommended 
thus,  he  came  with  his  wife  to  Leipsic,  and  brought 
with  him  a  volume  which  I  suppose  has  not  been 
published,  although  it  has  been  copyrighted,  entitled 
the  "  Christian  Spiritual  Bible."  It  is  necessary  for 
me  to  describe  the  character  of  this  book,  for  I  must 
tell  you  what  occurred  in  my  interview  with  this 
gentleman  in  presence  of  Professor  Zollner,  in  order 
that  I  may  show  you  what  his  attitude  is  concern- 
ing our  American  spiritism.  This  man  was  the  son 
of  a  distinguished  professor  in  the  United  States, 
who  was  once  an  atheist,  but  afterward  became  a 
spiritualist  and  a  vigorous  defender  of  his  new  faith. 
The  man  who  issued  this  book  is  a  person  very  far 
from  having  the  appearance  of  a  fanatic.  I  would 
not  mention  the  case  in  detail,  if  he  had  not  been  a 
person  apparently  of  judicial  mind.  He  is  a  lawyer, 
and  he  conversed  with  Professor  Zollner  and  myself 
in  the  coolest  manner.  You  know  the  English  tem- 
perament endures  in  this  country  wherever  the  rain- 
fall is  heavy ;  for  instance,  in  Maine,  in  Virginia,  in 
Kentucky,  and  in  the  Champlain  Valley.  This  man 
was  of  the  English- American  type,  and  seemed  to  be 


136  OCCIDENT. 

ver}^  unlikely  to  be  misled  by  any  excitement,  emo- 
tional or  imaginative.  Nevertheless,  he  claimed  that 
he  had  received  from  his  father,  the  deceased  profes- 
sor, a  Bible  which  is  to  supersede  the  old  one,  and 
that  the  proof-sheets  of  this  book,  in  the  presence  of 
several  persons,  had  been  dematerialized,  taken  in  an 
invisible  state  into  the  other  world,  corrected  and 
sent  back,  and  that,  therefore,  there  could  be  no  mis- 
take about  the  revelation.  Now,  I  wished  to  see  how 
a  dose  of  characteristic  American  spiritistic  medicine 
would  operate  on  the  sound  intellectual  stomach  of  a 
German  professor,  and,  therefore,  I  consented  to  ac- 
company Professor  Zollner  to  an  interview  with  this 
redoubtable  representative  of  modern  revelations. 

The  blasphemous  claim  is  made  in  the  "  Christian 
Spiritual  Bible  "  that,  in  a  closed  camera  at  Terre 
Haute,  Indiana,  a  photograph  was  taken  of  our  as- 
cended Lord.  The  frontispiece  in  this  book,  a  copy 
of  which  I  hold  in  my  hand,  is  a  picture  which 
claims  to  have  been  produced  from  a  negative  ob- 
tained in  that  camera.  But,  as  gentlemen  in  the 
rear  can  see  [Mr.  Cook  was  holding  the  book  open 
toward  them],  the  picture  is  nothing  but  a  repro- 
duction of  a  common  lithograph,  which,  I  presume, 
many  of  us  have  seen  again  and  again  in  the  print- 
shops  ever  since  we  were  boys  in  our  teens  —  the 
exact  face  !  The  claim  is  further  made  in  this  vol- 
ume that  photographs  in  closed  cameras  have  been 
obtained  of  all  the  apostles,  and  of  most  of  the  great 
characters  of  religious  histor}'-,  as  materialized  in  a 
glorified  human  form.  It  seems  blasphemy  to  repeat 
these  words ;  but  that  is  the  style  of  book  which  was 


zollner's  views  ok  spiritualism.       137 

presented  to  Professor  Zollner  as  resting  for  its  au- 
thority on  the  spiritistic  communications  of  which  he 
had  confessed  the  reality.  I  supposed  the  author  of 
this  book,  from  all  that  Professor  Zollner  had  told 
me  of  him,  to  be  one  of  the  most  extravagant  of  the 
wildest  tribe  of  American  spiritists,  and  I  agreed  to 
call  on  him  chiefly  that  I  might  see  what  Professor 
Zollner  would  say  in  regard  to  this  wildness.  This 
man  considered  himself  the  representative  of  his  fa- 
ther's present  advanced  wisdom,  and  as  the  instru- 
ment employed  by  the  higher  classes  of  spirits  for 
the  introduction  of  enlarged  views  of  Christianity 
into  the  world.  I  was  shocked  and  alarmed  by  the 
claim  which  he  made,  that,  through  the  aid  of  the 
Terre  Haute,  Indiana,  medium,  he  had  frequently 
seen  the  risen  Saviour  of  mankind,  and  had  been  in- 
trusted, through  him,  with  this  Spiritual  Bible,  with 
copies  of  which  he  was  to  enrich  German  professors. 
The  work  was  to  be  given  away,  and  after  some 
changes  and  improvements,  was  to  be  published  in 
America.  He  wished  distinguished  men  in  Germany 
to  send  him  questions,  to  which  he  believed  he  could 
obtain  answers  from  the  same  oracle  from  which  all 
his  other  information  had  been  obtained.  I  had  the 
most  vehement  disrespect  for  that  oracle  of  which  in 
America  I  had  heard  only  evil,  and  I  could  hardly 
keep  myself  in  a  mood  of  social  courtesy  as  he  went 
on  describing  what  he  had  learned  there  and  at  other 
similar  American  shrines. 

In  noticing  this  topic  of  the  "  Christian  Spiritual 
Bible  "  I  am  not  speaking  quite  at  random  ;  for  the 
latest  spiritistic  fashion  is  to  produce  Bibles  of  this 


188  OCCIDENT. 

kind.  There  was  given  to  me  the  other  day  the  pro- 
spectus of  a  mighty  book,  as  large,  nearly,  as  one  of 
our  pulpit  Bibles,  containing  revelations  which,  it  is 
claimed,  are  to  supersede  Christianity.  It  is  called 
"  Oahspe,"  and  is  represented  to  have  been  written 
by  the  dictation  of  angels  through  a  certain  Xew 
York  medium.  It  is  not  worth  buying,  even  as  a 
literary  curiosity.  It  is  worth  mentioning,  however, 
side  b}^  side  with  this  other  Christian  Bible  of  the 
spiritual  sort,  in  order  that  you  may  see  from  the 
floating  of  these  air-bubbles  Avhich  way  certain  cur- 
rents run.  The  bubbles  amount  to  nothing,  but  the 
currents  amount  to  much. 

In  the  interview  with  the  American  spiritualist,  as 
I  wished  to  see  the  effect  of  nonsense  on  Zollner,  1 
remained  as  quiet  as  I  could.  Our  expounder  spoke 
only  in  English  ;  but  Zollner  understands  this  fairly 
well,  and  he  maintained  a  most  surly  silence  as  the 
flood  of  the  lawyer's  talk  went  on.  According  to 
this  Spiritual  Bible  there  have  been  four  incarnations 
of  our  Lord;  the  flrst  in  Isaac,  the  second  ii;i  the 
author  of  the  Bhagvat  Geeta,  the  third  in  Sakya 
Muni,  and  the  last  in  Christ.  Our  Lord,  therefore, 
personally  taught  the  Old  Testament  religion  and 
also  tliat  of  the  uncorrupted  Indian  Scriptures,  as 
well  as  that  of  the  New  Testament.  In  the  latter 
only  the  Gospels  are  to  be  taken  as  wholly  author- 
itative representations  of  religious  truth.  This  man 
had  seen  his  father,  as  a  materialized  spirit,  trans- 
form water  into  wine.  Some  of  the  manufactured 
liquid  was  shown  to  us  in  a  vial.  Besides  the  pho- 
tograph of  the  ascended  Christ,  which  had  been  ob- 


zollnee's  views  on  spiritualism.      139 

tained  in  a  closed  camera,  at  least  twenty  other  plio- 
tograplis  of  the  leaders  of  the  world's  religion  in 
past  ages  had  been  obtained  in  the  same  way.  Zoll- 
ner  plainly  grew  more  and  more  impatient  as  this 
narration  proceeded  ;  but  the  personal  appearance  of 
the  narrator  and  of  his  wife  was  so  respectable  that 
we  could  not,  at  a  first  interview,  venture  to  call 
them  dupes  to  their  faces.  Alfred  Russel  Wallace, 
as  we  were  reminded,  had  indorsed  the  claims  of  this 
American  as  worth  attention,  and  it  appeared  to  be 
his  object  to  obtain  some  good  w^ord  for  himself  from 
Zollner;  but  he  did  not  get  it.  In  my  presence 
ZoUner  politely  excused  himself  from  acceding  to  the 
rather  urgent  demand  that  he  would  distribute  copies 
of  the  Scriptural  Bible  to  several  learned  men  in 
Germany. 

The  moment  we  were  out  of  the  room  and  walk- 
ing together  on  the  street.  Professor  Zollner,  with 
German  warmth  and  enthusiasm,  took  your  lecturer 
by  the  arm  and  burst  forth  into  a  denunciation  of 
the  atrocious  absurdity  of  building  convictions  like 
those  of  the  man  we  had  just  seen  on  such  evidence 
as  had  been  placed  before  us.  I  said  little,  for  I 
wished  to  notice  what  the  natural  posture  of  Pro- 
fessor Zollner's  mind  would  be  under  the  circum- 
stances. I  wished  to  observe  how  the  huo;e  and  nau- 
seating  dose  which  had  been  administered  would  act 
on  his  intellectual  stomach.  It  was  a  most  power- 
ful and  swift  emetic.  Zollner  admitted  that  he  had 
himself  witnessed  enough  to  make  the  theory  that 
spirits  can  assume  a  material  form  credible  to  him- 
self, but  he  thought  that  all  we  had  heard  was  bet- 


140  OCCIDENT. 

ter  evidence  of  the  fact  of  modern  demoniacal  pos- 
session than  of  anything  else.  "One  revelation  is 
enough,"  said  he,  "and  our  conscience  and  reason 
are  given  us  to  be  used  here  and  now  with  all  cau- 
tion and  courage,  no  matter  what  comes  to  us  from 
other  spheres  of  existence."  His  conviction  was  that 
only  a  man  utterly  unscientific  and  deficient  in  com- 
mon sense  could  give  credence  to  communications 
such  as  are  contained  in  that  volume. 

It  was  as  a  Christian  spiritualist  that  Zollner  had 
been  approached  by  this  representative  of  American 
revelations.  It  was  as  a  believer  in  Christianity  and 
as  a  man  of  science  that  Zollner  repelled  the  preten- 
sions of  the  "  Christian  Spiritual  Bible."  I  finally 
told  Zollner  that  what  we  had  heard  was  not  an  un- 
fair specimen  of  much  that  American  spiritualists 
are  familiar  with  in  speech  and  in  print.  I  enlarged 
on  the  moral  mischief  spiritualism  is  doing  in  vari- 
ous quarters  of  my  own  country,  and  on  the  desira- 
bleness of  some  scientific  explanation  of  its  alleged 
facts  as  a  means  of  preventing  the  spread  of  poison- 
ous opinions  and  practices  among  thoughtless  and 
ill-informed  people.  Zollner  had  lately  had  many 
correspondents  wlio  had  sent  him  news  from  Amer- 
ica, giving  rose -colored  views  of  the  condition  of 
spiritualism  there  ;  but  for  the  mass  of  letters  which 
had  reached  him  he  expressed  only  intellectual  dis- 
dain and  moral  disgust.  I  told  him  what  I  could  of 
the  obscure  but  terribly  real  underground  work  of 
spiritualism  in  America,  and  of  the  horror  which  its 
practical  effects  as  a  religious  faith  inspire  even  in 
many  who  think  its  phenomena  worthy  of  scientific 
investigation. 


zollner's  views  on  spieitualism.       141 

Zollner  admitted  frankly  that^  to  his  mind^  the  ex- 
istence and  agency  of  evil  spirits  were  much  better 
proved  than  those  of  good.  The  author  of  this  book 
to  which  Zolhier's  attention  had  just  been  called 
had  denounced  the  mass  of  American  spiritualists  as 
"the  dupes  of  earth-spirits  or  demons,"  and  Zollner 
seemed  inclined  to  think  the  author  himself  a  similar 
dupe.  The  emetic  worked  with  such  power  that  I 
had  little  doubt  left  of  the  intellectual  health  of  Pro- 
fessor Zollner's  mental  stomach.  Nor  did  I  wonder 
at  his  disgust  at  finding  himself  quoted  as  an  author- 
ity by  spiritualists  of  a  type  with  which  he  has  not 
the  slightest  affinity. 

Next  morning  I  called  on  Zollner  at  his  rooms, 
and  he  showed  me  the  larger  part  of  the  original  rec- 
ords of  his  famous  experiments.  I  saw  the  cord  in 
which  abnormal  knots  were  tied ;  the  doubly  and 
trebly  sealed  slates,  between  which  messages  were 
written ;  the  pieces  of  coin  which  are  said  to  have 
passed  through  a  table  in  a  manner  supposed  to  illus- 
trate the  suspension  of  the  laws  of  the  impenetrabil- 
ity of  matter ;  the  straps  of  leather  knotted  under 
Zollner's  hands  in  a  w^ay  explicable,  according  to 
Zollner,  only  by  the  supposition  that  space  has  a 
fourth  dimension ;  the  impression  of  two  feet  on 
sooted  paper  pasted  inside  two  sealed  slates  ;  the  un- 
injured wooden  rings  which  were  placed  around  the 
standard  of  a  card  -  table  ;  and,  finally,  this  table 
itself,  a  stout  structure  of  varnished  beechen-wood, 
which,  according  to  the  account  given  of  one  of  the 
experiments,  wholly  disappeared,  and  then  fell  down 
from  the  top  of  the  room  in  which  Zollner  and  other 


142  OCCIDENT. 

persons  were  sitting.  The  chief  facts,  or  alleged 
facts,  which  are  detailed  in  Zollner's  scientific  trea- 
tises, as  observed  by  himself  and  Professors  Weber, 
Scheibner,  and  Fechner,  he  described  to  me  with 
much  minuteness,  with  the  original  instruments  be- 
fore us  to  make  the  explanation  more  vivid.  He  in- 
sisted much  on  his  theory  that  there  is  a  fourth 
dimension  of  space,  and  said  that,  if  he  were  to  con- 
tinue his  experiments,  it  would  be  to  substantiate  this 
position.  From  mathematicians  and  philosophers  of 
various  schools  he  had  collected  numerous  testimonies 
in  support  of  this  theory,  on  which  he  relied  for  the 
explanation  of  many  physical  phenomena,  like  the 
penetrability  and  disappearance  of  matter.  Zollner's 
whole  manner  in  discussing  his  experiments  was  cir- 
cumspect and  candid,  and  ^^et  marked  by  a  degree  of 
natural  enthusiasm  awakened  by  the  vast  possible 
issues  of  discoveries  in  transcendental  physics. 

Let  me  part  from  this  theme  by  describing  a  sa- 
cred scene.  Professor  Bruhns,  a  distinguished  astron- 
omer of  Leipsic  University,  was  buried  while  I  was 
in  the  city ;  and,  under  the  blossoming  orchards 
around  his  house,  it  was  my  fortune  to  be  standing 
in  a  crowd  near  Professor  Zollner,  when  his  mind 
was  greatly  solemnized  by  his  having  parted  recently 
from  an  honored  colleague.  I  said  to  him  :  ''  Pro- 
fessor Zollner,  what  does  your  science  of  transcen- 
dental phj^sics  lead  you  to  believe  as  to  the  Christian 
miracles?"  I  remember  that  there,  under  the  clear 
German  sky,  with  that  corpse  lying  in  its  coffin  not 
far  from  us  in  the  parlor,  where  Professor  Luthardt 
was  delivering  the  funeral  oration,  Zollner  turned 


zollner's  views  on  spiritualism.       143 

and  said,  in  the  presence  of  many :  "  The  reality  of 
the  Christian  miracles,  as  indubitable  historical  facts, 
is  my  deepest  scientific  conviction."  More  than  a 
dozen  times  he  said  that  to  me,  privately ;  but  I  re- 
call with  especial  distinctness  his  remark  there  at 
the  edge  of  the  grave,  into  which  he  has  since  gone 
himself. 

Zollner  stood  in  all  our  conversations  on  definitely 
Christian  ground ;  yet  he  was  not  regarded  as  an  ac- 
tive member  of  any  church  in  Germany.  I  suppose, 
of  course,  that  he  had  been  confirmed  in  his  youth, 
and  was  a  member  of  some  state  church  ;  but  he  was 
by  no  means  considered  as  a  leader  of  religious  life 
in  Leipsic.  His  views  may  be  summarized  in  seven 
propositions  as  to  the  moral  and  religious  bearings  of 
the  facts  of  psychical  science. 

1.  The  only  safe  guide  in  dealing  with  spiritual- 
ism is  the  Bible. 

2.  Modern  ages  are  in  need  of  all  the  scriptural 
warnings  against  necromancy  and  commerce  with 
evil  spirits. 

Professor  Phelps  has  published  an  article  with  the 
title  :  "  Ought  the  Pulpit  to  Ignore  Spiritualism  ?  " 
and  his  answer  is,  "  No."  I  showed  that  article  to 
no  less  a  man  than  Professor  Christlieb,  who  brought 
it  back  to  me  and  said :  "I  indorse  every  word  of 
it."  I  have  heard  him  teach  his  own  theological 
students  that  demoniacal  possession  is  a  modern  fact. 
I  am  giving  his  opinion,  not  mine.  "  Keep  your 
eyes  open,"  he  said  to  me,  ''and  when  you  are  in 
India  study  the  topics  of  magic  and  sorcery  and  demo- 
niacal possession.     Ask  veteran  missionaries  whether 


144  OCCIDENT. 

tliey  do  not  think  there  is  something  like  demoniacal 
possession  on  the  earth  to-day."  I  have  done  that, 
and  I  have  found  that  about  seven  out  of  ten  of  these 
acutest  students  of  paganism  do  believe  in  demoni- 
acal possession,  and  affirm  that  they  can  distinguish 
cases  of  it  from  nervous  disease.  About  three  out  of 
ten  have  told  me  that  such  cases  collapse  on  investi- 
gation. 

3.  Zollner  held  Scriptural  views  as  to  good  spirits 
as  well  as  to  evil  spirits ;  but  he  insisted  that  modern 
facts  which  prove  the  existence  and  agency  of  the 
former  are  few  and  far  between. 

4.  The  existence  of  evil  spirits  and  the  possibility 
and  actuality  of  their  communications  with  men  he 
regarded  as  a  demonstrated  reality  in  our  century. 

5.  The  outcome  of  transcendental  physics  he  firmly 
believed  will  be  the  destruction  of  the  anti-super- 
naturalistic  philosophies  of  our  day. 

6.  He  was  confident  that  it  will  also  be  the  justifi- 
cation of  scriptural  views  of  miracles,  insjDiration, 
and  prophecy. 

7.  That  the  supernatural,  in  the  biblical  sense  of 
the  word,  is  a  reality,  he  described  as  his  deepest 
scientific  conviction. 

Professor  Zollner  closed  our  protracted  interviews 
by  impressive  reiterations  of  his  opinions  on  tran- 
scendental physics,  and  of  his  confidence  that  his  po- 
sitions could  not  be  successfully  attacked,  either  on 
scientific  or  on  biblical  ground.  His  opponents,  he 
admitted,  were  many  and  influential,  but  their  criti- 
cisms amounted  to  little  in  presence  of  the  combined 
testimony  of  Weber,  Scheibner,  and  Fechner,  to  mat- 


zollner's  views  on  spiritualism.       145 

ters  of  fact.  Luthardt,  as  a  great  theologian,  was  a 
believer  in  demonology,  and  so  were  many  of  the 
professors  of  theology  in  Germany ;  and  yet  Zollner 
felt  himself  obliged  to  complain  of  the  uncandid  atti- 
tude of  Christian  teachers  toward  his  reassertion  of 
what  he  conceived  to  be  simply  the  biblical  view  of 
good  and  evil  spirits.  His  hearers  at  the  University, 
he  admitted,  were  few  at  present ;  but  he  hoped  he 
had  some  hearers  in  the  Avorld  at  large.  In  the  arena 
of  science,  in  spite  of  determined  opposition,  he  be- 
lieved that  Professor  Crookes,  of  England,  and  him- 
self, were,  and  would  continue  to  be,  victors  in  main- 
taining that  there  is  scientific  modern  evidence  of  the 
existence  of  good  and  evil  disembodied  spirits.  De- 
nying the  trustworthiness  of  spiritistic  communica- 
tions as  sources  of  religious  knowledge,  he  was  rather 
a  biblical  demonologist  than  a  spiritualist.  He  be- 
lieved that  the  progress  of  transcendental  physics 
will  bring  into  the  field  of  Christian  apologetics  in 
another  century  a  new  host  of  facts  rendering  more 
invincible  than  ever  the  high  fortresses  of  Christian 
truth,  which  have  so  often  seen  battle,  but  never  de- 
feat. At  the  end  of  our  last  interview.  Professor 
Zollner,  in  the  clear  morning  sunlight,  sat  down  at 
his  organ,  on  one  side  of  his  study,  and  played  and 
sang  Luther's  hymn:  "  Ein  feste  Burg  ist  unser 
Gott."  I  was  to  see  him  no  more  on  this  side  of 
the  grave.  A  few  months  later,  under  the  Southern 
Cross,  news  came  to  me  that  he  had  passed  into  the 
world  into  which  all  men  haste. 

10 


V. 

OPPONENTS    OF  PROFESSOR   ZOLLNER'S 
VIEWS   ON   SPIRITUALISM, 

WITH   A    PRELUDE    ON 

AMERICAN  AND  FOREIGN  TEMPERANCE  CREEDS. 

THE    ONE    HUNDRED   AND    FIFTY-FIFTH    LECTURE    IN    THE 

BOSTON   MONDAY    LECTURESHIP,    DELIVERED   IN 

TREMONT   TEMPLE,   FEBRUARY   5,  1883. 


"  A  school-house  on  every  hill,  and  no  saloon  in  the  valley."  — 
Iowa. 

"  The  eye  of  the  age  is  fixing  its  gaze  upon  constitutional  prohi- 
bition as  the  goal  towards  which  society  is  advancing.  The  index 
finger  of  the  century  points  to  it."  — Daniel  Dorchester. 


"According  to  my  judgment,  no  one  has  succeeded  in  explaining 
the  facts  attested  by  Zollner  and  other  German  professors  by  the 
theory  of  deception,  illusion,  or  jugglery.  Nor  has  any  one  distinctly 
shown  that  these  facts  can  be  explained  only  by  the  action  of  spirits 
not  in  the  fiesh."  —  Ulrici,  Letter  of  August  IG,  1881. 

"Proinde  ita  persuasum  sit,  intestabilem,  irritam,  inanem  esse,  ha- 
bentem  tamen  quasdam  veritatis  umbras."  —  Pliny,  on  Magic. 


PRELUDE  V. 
AMEEICAN  AND   FOREIGN   TEMPERANCE   CREEDS. 

The  law  of  averages,  as  exhibited  in  tlie  experi- 
ence of  life  assurance  companies  during  the  last  forty 
years,  has  once  for  all  triumphantly  justified  the  tem- 
perance principle  of  total  abstinence.  [Applause.] 
Among  serious  and  thoroughly  well-informed  per- 
sons debate  is  over  on  this  matter.  Yes,  my  luxuri- 
ous friend ;  yes,  my  moderate  drinker  in  the  pulpit 
[laughter],  you  are  marked  men,  because  benighted 
and  belated.  [Applause.]  When  I  was  in  London, 
I  took  much  pains  to  ascertain  exactly  the  facts  as 
to  the  experience  of  British  life  assurance  societies 
in  making  a  distinction  between  moderate  drinkers 
and  total  abstainers.  Every  one  knows  or  ought  to 
know  that  for  nearly  half  a  century  now  many  of  the 
best  life  assurance  societies  of  England  have  insured 
moderate  drinkers  and  total  abstainers  in  separate 
sections,  and  that  a  bonus  has  been  paid  to  the  sections 
made  up  of  total  abstainers  of  seven,  thirteen,  seven- 
teen, and  in  some  cases  twenty-three  per  cent,  over  that 
paid  to  the  sections  of  moderate  drinkers. 

Here  are  a  few  commercial  facts  of  the  largest  phil- 
anthropic significance.  I  have  in  my  possession  an 
original  letter  from  one  of  the  foremost  agencies  for 
life  assurance  in  London,  and  the  statement  is  con- 


150  OCCIDENT. 

tained  in  it  that  for  fifteen  years  tlie  society  has  been 
accustomed  to  pay  every  five  years  bonuses  to  its 
two  sections.  One  of  these  is  made  up  of  total  ab- 
stainers, and  the  other  of  moderate  drinkers.  The 
result  has  been,  during  the  past  sixteen  years,  that 
there  have  been  issued  9,345  policies  on  the  lives  of 
moderate  drinkers,  that  is,  of  those  who  are  not 
strictly  abstinent  in  the  use  of  alcoholic  liquors,  and 
3,396  on  the  lives  of  total  abstainers.  Of  the  former 
524  have  died,  but  91  only  of  the  latter,  or  less  than 
half  the  proportionate  number,  which,  of  course, 
would  be  190.  Less  than  one  half  the  number  of 
abstainers  have  died,  compared  with  the  number 
that  died  among  non-abstainers  who  were  strictly 
temperate,  and  this  in  an  experience  of  sixteen 
years !  I  hold  in  my  hand  the  circulars  of  a  very 
celebrated  life  assurance  society,  which  I  shall  not 
name,  for  fear  you  will  say  I  wish  to  advertise  it, 
although  it  is  not  an  American  society,  and  I  read  in 
this  ofiicial  document  that  in  1872, 1875,  and  1878 
the  bonus  to  the  temperance  section  was  fourteen  per 
cent,  higher  than  in  the  general  department,  while 
the  bonus  for  1881  in  the  temperance  section  was 
twenty-three  per  cent,  higher.  I  will  name  a  single 
one  of  the  great  life  assurance  companies  in  England 
because  its  reputation  is  well  established  and  I  can- 
not be  suspected  of  having  any  improper  motive  for 
giving  its  career  publicity.  I  refer  to  the  United 
Kingdom  Temperance  and  General  Provident  Insti- 
tution. In  England  its  experience  is  often  cited  to 
show  the  superior  value  of  teetotal  lives,  as  compared 
with  those  of   moderate  drinkers.     The   institution 


TEMPERANCE  CREEDS.  151 

insures  members  in  two  sections  :  one  in  which  all 
the  members  are  total  abstainers ;  in  the  other,  mod- 
erate drinkers,  —  all  intemperate  persons  being,  of 
course,  excluded.  The  two  sections  are  exactly  alike 
in  every  other  respect,  about  20,000  lives  being  in- 
sured in  the  General  Section,  and  10,000  in  the  Tem- 
perance Section.  Returns  of  the  expected  and  actual 
claims  in  both  sections  for  fifteen  years,  from  1864 
till  1875,  show  that  in  the  General  Section  3,450 
deaths  were  expected,  and  that  3,444  took  place; 
whereas,  in  the  Temperance  Section  the  expected 
deaths  were  2,002,  and  the  actual  deaths  only  1,433. 
During  the  year  1879  the  expected  claims  in  the 
Temperance  Section  were  195  for  X  40, 844 ;  the  ac- 
tual claims  were  164  for  £28,690.  In  the  General 
Section  305  were  expected  for  <£ 64,343,  the  actual 
having  been  326  for  X  74,950.  The  quinquennial 
bonuses  in  the  Temperance  Section  have  been  seven- 
teen and  one  half  per  cent,  greater  than  those  in  the 
General  Section. 

To  summarize  details  which  T  might  easily*make 
voluminous,  the  experience  of  nearly  forty  years 
and  the  insurance  of  more  than  100,000  lives  in  so- 
cieties making  a  distinction  between  temperate  non- 
abstainers  and  total  abstainers  have  proved  that  un- 
der the  law  of  averages  a  bonus  of  from  seventeen  to 
twenty-three  per  cent,  must  be  paid  to  the  sections 
of  total  abstainers. 

Where  is  the  church,  where  is  wealthy  society, 
where  are  our  circles  of  culture  and  advanced 
thought,  where  are  our  serious  and  intelligent  young 
men,  that  they  are  not  awake  to  these  stern  facts  of 


152  OCCIDENT. 

mere  business  ?  I  have  been  citing  to  you  not  tem- 
perance documents,  but  the  reports  of  life  assurance 
societies.  They  are  not  fanatical  organizations ;  they 
are  not  governed  by  this  or  that  pet  theory  as  to  tem- 
perance reform.  Here  is  cool,  stern  business  sagacity 
applied  to  one  of  the  most  complicated  commercial 
matters ;  and  the  outcome  we  have  in  this  great  prop- 
osition, sustained  by  the  most  exact  application  of 
the  law  of  averages,  that  nearly  twenty-five  per  cent, 
bonus  must  be  paid  to  total  abstainers  above  what  is 
paid  to  moderate  drinkers.  Of  course  many  of  these 
total  abstainers  have  not  been  such  for  all  their  lives. 
Their  health  may  have  been  injured  in  many  cases 
by  early  indulgences.  By  and  by,  when  these  soci- 
eties come  to  have  sections  filled  by  men  who  have 
been  total  abstainers  from  birth,  the  average  of  bo- 
nuses will  be  higher  to  the  temperance  sections. 
You  ought,  also,  to  keep  in  mind  constantly  that  the 
section  not  made  up  of  total  abstainers  is  not  a  sec- 
tion of  drunkards,  but  that  it  consists  of  those  who 
are  merely  moderate  drinkers,  respectable  men,  most 
of  them  only  wine  drinkers. 

For  one,  I  regard  this  state  of  the  facts  concerning 
the  law  of  averages  in  life  assurance  societies  as  alto- 
gether the  most  incisive  argument  that  can  just  now 
be  named  in  support  of  the  principle  of  total  absti- 
nence. I  have  in  my  possession  original  letters  from 
secretaries  of  life  assurance  societies  in  the  northern 
and  southern  hemispheres.  I  refrain  from  citing  a 
single  American  life  assurance  company,  because  I 
will  not  weaken  this  argument  by  allowing  you  to 
suspect  that  I  have  been  asked  to  publish  these  facts. 


TEMPERANCE  CEEEDS.  153 

I  beg  you  to  investigate  this  matter  carefully  for 
yourselves.  The  law  of  averages  in  life  assurance 
societies  is  now  the  pedestal  of  adamant  on  which 
stands  triumphant  for  all  future  time,  in  the  name  of 
science,  the  abused  and  once  even  humiliated  princi- 
ple of  total  abstinence.     [Applause.] 

British  and  American  temperance  methods  and 
creeds  differ  somewhat,  to  our  disadvantage.  Un- 
doubtedly, we  have  carried  the  legal  remedies  for  in- 
temperance further  than  Europe  has  done.  No  por- 
tion of  the  foreign  part  of  the  world  that  I  have  vis- 
ited has  shown  me  anything  like  our  advance  in  tem- 
perance legislation.  No  portion  has  gone  beyond 
what  we  have  in  some  past  times  attained  in  the  use 
of  the  moral  method  of  repressing  intemperance ; 
but  at  present  we  are  fanning  the  air  with  the  legal 
wing  of  the  temperance  reform  and  seem  to  have 
forgotten  the  moral  wing  in  large  degree.  British 
temperance  circles  at  the  present  moment  are  more 
emphatic  in  church  efforts  and  in  the  endeavor  to 
produce,  through  secular  organizations,  a  right  im- 
pression on  the  masses  of  the  population  than  we 
are. 

Allow  me  to  raise  a  serious  note  of  warning  against 
trying  to  fly  the  temperance  cause  with  one  wing. 
Whenever  we  have  used  only  the  legal  wing  or  only 
the  moral  wing,  the  flight  of  the  temperance  reform 
has  been  a  sorry  spiral.  It  always  must  be  such 
under  similar  circumstances.  In  the  temperance 
movement  we  have  mere  agitation  pitted  against  av- 
arice and  appetite.  Agitation  is  a  spasmodic  force 
at   best;    appetite    and   avarice   are    both   constant 


154  OCCIDENT. 

forces.  It  requires  great  assistance  from  Almighty 
ProYidence  to  obtain  the  attention  of  a  whole  state 
or  nation ;  and,  when  you  have  secured  this,  it  re- 
quires great  assistance  to  keep  the  drowsy  public 
attentive  long  enough  to  carry  an  election.  Agita- 
tion in  church  and  state  is  our  chief  force  against  the 
solid  ranks  of  the  whiskey  rings  and  against  the  im- 
passive brutal  forces  of  appetite.  With  a  fifth  of  our 
population  in  cities,  I  beg  leave  to  say  that  there  is 
not  a  feather  in  either  of  the  two  great  temperance 
wings  that  we  can  dispense  with.  One  of  the  most 
mischievous  things  in  the  temperance  cause  appears 
to  me  to  be  the  fight  of  the  feathers  with  each  other 
[applause]  ;  not  only  wing  with  wing,  but  feather 
with  feather  in  a  single  wing. 

I  had  thought  of  putting  upon  this  board  [refer- 
ring to  a  blackboard  in  front  of  the  speaker's  desk], 
and  perhaps  I  had  better  do  so,  a  graphic  illustration 
of  what  I  mean  by  two  wings.  [Taking  the  chalk, 
Mr.  Cook  drew  a  representation  of  two  wings,  say- 
ing, as  he  did  so]  :  If  that  is  the  right  wing,  or  legal 
wing,  I  should  call  the  lower  feather  of  it  the  civil 
damage  law ;  then  I  should  say,  above  that  we  have 
local  option  ;  and,  above  that,  legislative  prohibition ; 
and,  above  that,  constitutional  prohibition ;  and, 
above  that,  woman's  temperance  vote.  [Applause.] 
And  now,  if,  on  the  other  side,  I  must  outline,  in 
reverse  order,  the  five  feathers  of  the  moral  wing,  I 
should  put,  first  of  all,  at  the  top,  church  temperance 
organizations  ;  next  the  efforts  of  secular  temperance 
societies  of  all  kinds ;  next,  temperance  instruction 
in  schools ;  next,  the  example  of  what  we  call  the 


TEMPERANCE  CREEDS.  155 

leading  classes,  among  tlie  highly  educated  or  the 
very  wealthy ;  and  last,  business  prudence,  or  your 
desire  to  be  relieved  from  taxes  caused  by  the  rav- 
ages of  intemperance.  What  I  assert  is,  that  we 
cannot  fly  without  the  use  of  all  the  feathers  in  each 
of  these  wings,  and  that  it  is  suicidal  policy  to  try  to 
fly  without  a  fair  and  bold  balancing  of  both  the 
wings  at  once.  The  temperance  cause  cannot  make 
the  circuit  of  the  earth  in  the  atmosphere  of  free  in- 
stitutions unless  both  the  moral  and  the  legal  wings 
are  used  unitedly  and  constantly. 

Look  for  an  instant  at  the  smallest  lower  feather 
of  the  moral  wing  —  business  prudence.  I  put  in 
one  hand  all  the  money  we  spend  for  our  civil 
service.  It  is  an  enormous  amount ;  about  400 
millions  a  year.  Will  that  weigh  down  what  we 
spend  for  liquor?  I  put  in  this  right-hand  scale  the 
liquor  bill  of  the  United  States,  and  the  left-hand 
scale  goes  up.  I  add  to  what  we  pay  for  the  civil 
service  all  we  pay  for  the  Army ;  the  left  hand  goes 
up  yet.  All  we  pay  for  the  Navy  ;  it  goes  up  yet. 
All  we  pay  to  Congress,  including  the  river  and  har- 
bor appropriation  bills  [laughter]  ;  it  goes  up  yet. 
All  we  pay  to  state  governments  ;  it  goes  up  yet. 
All  we  pay  to  county  governments  and  to  city  gov- 
ernments ;  this  scale,  with  all  these  weights  in  it, 
goes  up  yet.  I  add  all  we  pay  to  town  governments 
and  for  common  school  education  out  of  the  taxes  on 
school  districts,  and  yet  this  scale  goes  up.  The 
national  census  bureau  informs  us  that  about  700 
millions  is  the  amount  put  into  the  left-hand  scale 
under  the  circumstances  I  have  named  ;  but  the  most 


156  OCCIDENT. 

careful  statisticians  say,  and  the  New  York  "  Trib- 
une "  brought  these  facts  before  the  public,  not  long 
ago,  that  at  least  800  millions  is  the  annual  liquor 
bill  of  the  United  States.  [Sensation.]  That  is 
one  feather  of  this  mighty  wing. 

I  undertake  to  maintain  unflinchingly  what  Mr. 
Gladstone  has  said,  that  the  intemperance  of  the 
Anglo-Saxon  races,  especially  of  Englishmen,  Scotch- 
men, and  Americans,  has  injured  us  more  than  war, 
pestilence,  and  famine.  We  are  the  most  drunken 
nations  on  earth.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that,  if 
we  could  shake  off  intemperance  as  thoroughly  as 
the  Hindus  and  Turks  have  done,  we  should  probably 
double  the  income  of  the  United  States  and  of  the 
United  Kingdom. 

The  Massachusetts  Bureau  of  Statistics  has  af- 
firmed solemnly  in  an  official  document,  that  intem- 
perance enters  as  a  leading  cause  into  eighty-four 
per  cent,  of  the  crimes  brought  to  the  notice  of  the 
law  in  this  State ;  and  yet  his  Excellency,  the  pres- 
ent Governor  of  Massachusetts,  did  not  do  himself 
the  honor  of  mentioning  intemperance  when,  lately, 
in  a  long  message,  he  passed  a  fine-tooth  comb  through 
the  hair  of  this  Commonwealth  in  search  for  abuses. 
[Loud  and  continuous  applause.] 

Not  to  go  into  detail  through  all  the  five  different 
departments  of  each  wing,  but  asking  this  intelligent 
assembly  to  develop  for  itself,  face  to  face  with  our 
possible  American  future,  every  one  of  the  minor 
portions  of  my  theme,  I  pause,  for  an  instant,  on  a 
comparatively  new  temperance  measure. 

For   one,  I   believe  most  thoroughly  in  constitu- 


TEMPERANCE  CREEDS.  157 

tioiial  prohibition.  [Applause.]  It  is  a  superior 
form  of  local  option.  It  takes  temperance  legislation 
out  of  the  hands  of  political  parties,  and  secures  for 
it  the  support  of  the  people  at  large.  I  have  spoken 
for  this  reform  on  the  platforms  of  Kansas  and  Iowa 
when  it  was  a  beleagured  cause.  It  was  my  fortune 
once,  in  the  public  park  of  Topeka,  with  Governor 
St.  John  as  chairman,  to  defend  constitutional  prohi- 
bition when  it  was  exceedingly  unpopular  ;  and  yet  I 
felt  that  the  future  was  in  it.  I  do  not  know  how  it 
is  that  on  this  seaboard  we  sometimes  do  not  now 
seem  to  feel  the  throb  of  the  mighty  future  of  the 
Republic  as  our  fathers  did,  and  as  the  people  do  yet 
on  the  Mississippi.  Does  the  breadth  of  the  West  in- 
spire great  ideas?  We,  too,  have  broad  outlooks. 
We  have  a  great  river  running  past  our  wharves. 
We  call  it  the  Atlantic  Ocean.  We  ought  to  be 
able  to  look  across  it  and  see  that  our  temperance 
example  is  doing  good  or  evil  to  the  ends  of  the 
earth.  But  the  upper  half  of  the  Mississippi  Val- 
ley appears  to  have  a  more  intense  care  for  the  future 
of  its  population  than  we  have  for  that  of  ours.  It 
listens  to  the  tramp  of  the  coming  generations.  The 
sound  of  centuries  yet  to  be  is  in  the  ears  of  Iowa 
and  Kansas.  There  is  a  mighty  rustle  on  the  prairies 
in  favor  of  antidotes  for  one  of  the  hugest  evils  of 
our  civilization.  The  two  young  states  which  pos- 
sess the  fattest  portions  of  our  continent  are  making 
up  their  minds  that  they  will  not  allow  the  cancers 
of  the  whiskey  rings  to  eat  into  their  vitals.  No  tem- 
porary defeat  will  tame  the  reformatory  spirit  of 
these  commonwealths.     They  are  leading  our  nation 


158  OCCIDENT. 

and  the  world  in  temperance  legislation.  My  con- 
yiction  is  that,  if  a  score  of  the  American  states  suc- 
ceed in  putting  constitutional  prohibition  on  a  firm 
basis,  it  will  ultimately  become  a  national  policy. 
[Applause.]  There  are  at  least  ten  states  in  the 
Union  whose  legislatures  are  now  being  petitioned 
vigorously  for  constitutional  prohibition,  —  Wiscon- 
sin, Michigan,  Minnesota,  Nebraska,  Illinois,  Iowa, 
Ohio,  Pennsylvania,  New  York,  and  Massachusetts. 
We  have,  thank  Heaven,  about  twenty  states  that 
are  not  yet  under  the  heel  of  great  and  corrupt  cities. 
As  agitation  for  reform  goes  on,  they  may  possibly 
pass  constitutional  prohibitory  laws  and  make  them 
effective  in  practice.  Let  ten  states  succeed  with 
constitutional  prohibition,  and  ultimately  a  majority 
of  the  states  will  succeed.  Let  the  day  come,  and 
may  God  speed  it,  when  constitutional  prohibition 
shall  be  the  law  in  a  majority  of  states  of  this  Union, 
and  it  will  become  a  national  measure.  [Applause.] 
You  say  this  is  a  wild  hope.  Constitutional  national 
prohibition  is  too  great  a  blessing  to  expect  from 
commerce,  from  philanthropy,  or  from  politics.  It 
is  not  too  great  a  blessing  to  expect  from  the  Chris- 
tian Church.     [Applause.] 

What  is  the  chief  mischief  in  the  Church  in  rela- 
tion to  temperance  ?  We  are  all  under  the  volun- 
tary system,  and  sometimes  men  who  are  tipplers 
carry  large  bags.  [Laughter.]  I  am  in  no  pulpit. 
I  am  a  friend  of  the  pulpits  of  the  country,  and  am 
proud  of  the  courage  of  our  ministry  ;  but,  if  I  must 
tell  the  whole  truth,  as  I  try  always  to  do,  I  shall  be 
obliged  to  say  that,  in  certain  luxurious  circles,  espe- 


TEMPERANCE   CEEEDS.  159 

cially  in  the  great  cities,  there  is  a  large  amount  of 
Avine  drinking  in  what  are  called  the  upper  portions 
of  society,  and  so  it  is  hard  to  preach  total  absti- 
nence. It  is  hard  to  illustrate  it  by  personal  prac- 
tice. It  ought  not  in  this  country  to  be  hard;  but  I 
fear  it  is  becoming  harder  than  it  was  a  few  years 
ago  for  a  minister  to  defend  unflinchingly  total  ab- 
stinence in  the  presence  of  the  more  luxurious  mem- 
bers of  his  congregation.  There  are  some  easy  and 
careless  men,  who  love  to  be  called  evangelical  and 
thoroughly  genuine  in  their  Christianity,  who  will 
have  wines  in  large  variety,  and  sometimes  stronger 
liquors,  on  their  tables.  This  is  not  true  merely  of 
the  Pacific  Slope  ;  it  is  true  of  the  Mississippi  Val- 
ley, the  Middle  States,  and  even  of  New  England. 
These  great  obstacles  to  the  progress  of  the  temper- 
ance cause  we  must  uproot  decisively  by  a  tornado 
of  popular  sentiment  rising  outside  the  luxurious 
churches.  You  cannot  expect  such  churches  to  re- 
form themselves.  The  people  at  large  must  breathe 
out  their  indignation  against  men  who  stand  in  the 
high  places  of  the  Church  and  rent  their  property 
for  the  infamous  purposes  of  the  whiskey  rings. 
[Applause.]  They  must  breathe  out  their  indigna- 
tion against  high  social  examples  set  in  defiance  of 
the  dictates  of  science  and  even  of  the  commercial 
experience  of  our  time. 

The  Church  of  England  Temperance  Society,  not 
a  fanatical  body  at  all,  has  two  sections  —  one  for 
total  abstainers  and  one  for  moderate  drinkers.  But 
when  it  organizes  a  Rescue  Section,  and  sends  agents 
down  into  the  slums  to  recover  drunkards,  it  insists 


160  OCCIDENT. 

always  that  these  men  shall  take  a  pledge  of  abso- 
lutely total  abstinence.  I  maintain  that  not  only 
every  preacher,  but  every  church-member,  rich  or 
poor,  and  most  especially  if  his  position  as  an  em- 
ployer of  labor  makes  him  a  trellis-work  over  which 
many  lives  run,  should  be  a  member  of  the  res- 
cue section  of  society.  [Applause.]  This  English 
Church  temperance  organization,  with  a  double  ba- 
sis, is  now  being  imitated  on  our  shores.  That  most 
honored  veteran  in  the  temperance  cause,  William  E. 
Dodge,  I  believe,  gave  the  imitation  his  blessing  in 
New  York  the  other  day,  after  hearing  Bishop 
Clark's  public  defense  of  it.  I  cannot  quite  give 
it  mine.  I  do  not  believe  in  its  pledge  as  to  moder- 
ate use  of  alcohol.  I  never  should  organize  a  tem- 
perance society  on  that  basis  myself.  Nevertheless, 
I  cite  this  movement  in  the  Church  of  England  Tem- 
perance Society  to  show  you  that,  although  it  is  not 
fanatical  and  has  a  double  basis,  it  always  puts  total 
abstinence  into  its  rescue  work.  It  insists  on  the 
pledge  of  total  abstinence  for  the  young.  Let  us 
stand  on  this  lofty  example. 

Our  soft  society,  connected  with  fashionable  and 
wealthy  ecclesiastical  establishments,  dearly  likes  to 
know  what  is  the  sense  of  the  upper  ten  thousand 
in  the  ecclesiastical  world.  The  sense  is  total  absti- 
nence for  all  who  go  into  the  rescue  work  of  society ; 
the  sense  is  total  abstinence' for  the  young;  the  sense 
is  that  the  preacher  who  invites  the  young  convert 
to  the  table  has  no  right  to  put  before  him  the  intoxi- 
catiug  cup.  A  great  preacher  in  London  was  defend- 
ing his  wine  drinking  to  me,  and  I  said :  "  Suppose 


TEMPERANCE  CREEDS.  161 

John  B.  Goiigli  were  a  poor  inebriate  in  London  and 
were  to  be  converted,  which  church  would  it  be  bet- 
ter for  him  to  join, — yours,  where  you  set  him  the 
example  of  moderate  drinking,  and  where  you  put 
before  him,  at  your  own  table,  intoxicating  liquor ; 
or  would  it  be  better  for  him  to  join  Mr.  Spurgeon's 
church,  where  the  pastor  sets  the  example  of  total 
abstinence?"  That  argument  touched  him,  although 
he  was  invulnerable  to  every  other.  That  is  the 
argument  we  are  to  apply,  under  our  free  church 
system,  to  the  conscience  of  every  man  and  woman 
who  would  belong  to  the  rescue  section  of  religious 
society.  Let  us  make  every  feather  of  the  moral 
wing  and  of  the  legal  wing  of  the  temperance  reform 
broad  and  strong.  Let  the  two  smite  the  air  side  by 
side,  and  so  support  each  other,  and  carry  this  ma- 
jestic cause  proudly  through  the  vexed  atmosphere 
of  history.  In  a  better  day  than  ours,  woman's  tem- 
perance vote  will  be  to  the  whiskey  rings  what  light- 
ning is  to  the  oak.  [Applause.] 
11 


LECTURE  V. 

OPPONENTS    OF    PEOFESSOR    ZOLLNER'S    VIEWS    ON 
SPIRITUALISM. 

The  trustworthiness  of  so-called  spiritistic  comrau- 
nications  has  been  disproved  over  and  over.  There 
is  really  no  scientific  evidence  of  their  reality.  But, 
granting  their  reality,  there  is  predeterminate  effort, 
apparently,  on  the  part  of  any  disembodied  agencies 
that  communicate  with  us  to  prove  that  their  own 
communications  are  not  trustworthy.  The  supernat- 
ural is  more  than  the  superhuman.  If  I  were  to 
grant  the  reality  of  the  alleged  facts  of  spiritism, 
they  would  prove  only  the  reality  of  the  superhu- 
man, and  not  of  the  supernatural,  in  the  biblical 
sense.  I  repel,  therefore,  the  fear  of  those  who  think 
that,  to  investigate  this  subject,  is  to  throw  open  the 
whole  question  of  the  trustworthiness  of  the  Scrip- 
tures. It  is  not  that  at  all ;  it  is  not  that  in  the  mind 
of  serious  investigators  of  this  topic,  of  whom  there 
are  not  a  few  in  England  and  Germany.  It  is  not 
that  at  all  in  the  mind  of  the  great  theologians  in 
Europe,  who,  as  I  happen  to  know,  are,  many  of 
them,  believers  in  the  fact  of  demoniacal  possession 
in  our  day.  Let  the  fact  be  jiroved.  Let  it  be 
shown  that  there  is  scientific  modern  evidence  of  the 
truth  of  the  biblical  doctrines  concerning  good  and 


OPPONENTS   OF   ZOLLNER's   VIEWS.  163 

evil  spirits,  and  all  that  we  shall  then  need  to  do  is 
to  teach  these  doctrines  without  abatement. 

Scientific  supernaturalism  is  a  star  yet  below  the 
horizon  in  the  sky  of  exact  research ;  nevertheless, 
I  believe  it  to  be  a  light  which  is  sure  to  rise,  and 
which  will  probably  illuminate  the  terrestrial,  as  well 
as  the  celestial,  outlook  of  the  next  century. 

I  am,  however,  an  anti-spiritualist,  because  I  think 
there  is  already  evidence  enough  that,  if  spiritism 
should  turn  out  to  be  more  than  a  perhaps^  it  would 
be  simply  a  set  of  proofs  that  the  biblical  doctrine 
concerning  evil  spirits  is  true  to  the  facts  of  modern 
experience.  Undoubtedly,  good  spirits  are  all  around 
us.  On  biblical  authority,  I  believe  that  we  are 
surrounded  by  a  cloud  of  witnesses  in  the  invisible 
world  ;  and  I  am  perfectly  willing  that  this  should  be 
shown  to  be  true  on  modern  evidence  also,  for  I  am 
not  at  all  alarmed  by  the  prospect  that  a  new  reve- 
lation will  come  out  of  these  chatterings  and  peep- 
ings,  which  have  for  centuries  been  before  the  Avorld, 
and  have  produced  nothing  worth  mentioning  seri- 
ously, except  moral  disorder. 

But,  my  friends,  I  am  exceedingly  anxious  that 
you  should  see  that  the  opposition  to  any  assertion  of 
the  reality  of  these  phenomena  is  vigorous,  acute, 
profound,  and  no  doubt  the  most  thoroughly  so  in 
tlie  loftiest  quarters.  I  took  great  pains  to  meet 
the  opponents  of  Professor  Zollner.  Possibly  I 
shall  not  be  violating  confidence  if  I  give  you  the 
opinion  of  a  distinguished  German  professor  as  to 
what  the  present  policy  of  the  pulpit  should  be  con- 
cerning spiritualism.     He  is  a  revered  teacher  whose 


164  OCCIDENT. 

name  is  known  on  both  sides  of  tlie  sea.  Zollner  was 
his  colleague  in  Leipsic  University.  I  shall  never 
forget  his  gestures,  as  he  expressed  his  opinion. 
"  Tliis,"  said  he,  "  is  the  proper  attitude  to  take  as 
yet  concerning  spiritism,''  and  he  put  his  hands  over 
both  ears  and  shut  his  eyes  tightly  and  closed  his 
mouth.  If  I  were  to  shut  my  mouth,  I  should  keep 
my  eyes  open  ;  and  if  I  were  to  shut  mouth  and 
eyes,  I  should  keep  my  ears  open.  Probably  this 
professor  meant  to  be  humorous.  A  full  statement 
of  his  opinion  would  give  a  very  different  impression 
from  that  which  you  receive  from  this  anecdote. 
Nevertheless,  there  is  in  the  world  a  great  amount  of 
similar  and  not  humorous  evasiveness.  I  must  say 
that  I  regard  it  as  unmanly,  unscientific,  and  un- 
timely. There  is  such  enormous  mischief  being  done 
by  spiritualism  that  on  this  topic  we  have  no  right 
to  shut  either  ears  or  eyes  or  lips.  For  one,  I  pro- 
pose to  assert  liberty  for  all  three  of  these  organs, 
and  especially  for  the  human  reason  and  conscience 
in  the  examination  by  the  scientific  method  of  any 
facts  that  may  come  before  us. 

Professor  Wundt,  of  Leipsic,  is  the  great  opponent 
of  Zollner.  The  result  of  our  conversation  gave  me 
nothing  with  which  to  rebut  ZoUner's  claims  as  to 
matters  of  fact.  I  asked  for  references  to  the  best 
German  literature  against  spiritualism,  and  I  beg 
you  to  notice  that  the  only  reply  I  received  from  this 
chief  antagonist  of  Zollner  was  that  the  ablest  and 
most  conclusive  reply  to  Zollner  an 3^ where  made,  as 
yet,  was  that  by  our  Professor  Stanley  Hall,  who 
lately  was  a  student  at  Leipsic.     Most  of  us  know 


OPPONENTS   OF   ZOLLNER'S   VIEWS.  165 

what  Professor  Hall  has  published ;  and,  if  that  is 
the  best  that  can  be  said  against  Zollner,  I,  for  one, 
think  the  topic  is  yet  worthy  of  investigation.  I  have 
high  respect  for  Professor  Hall ;  and  am  thankful  for 
many  facts  which  he  has  brought  to  our  knowledge  ; 
but  nobody  here  regards  liis  reply  as  really  ade- 
quate in  this  case.  I  asked  Wundt  if  Zollner  was  to 
be  considered  insane.  I  was  very  much  interested  in 
the  answer  that  Wundt  —  not  forgetting  his  honor 
—  would  make  to  this  inquiry.  I  did  not  think 
more  highly  of  the  man  when  he  cringed  a  little  and 
said,  rather  lightly,  that,  since  the  publication  of  his 
last  volume  of  scientific  treatises,  Zollner  must  un- 
doubtedly be  considered  as  probably  crazy.  I  had 
heard  it  vehemently  asserted  by  two  or  three  irre- 
sponsible private  students  at  Leipsic  that  Zollner 
had  one  or  two  relatives  who  had  been  insane  at 
some  distance  back  in  his  line  of  ancestry;  but  I 
could  procure  no  definite  facts  whatever  to  show  that 
Wundt's  light  charge  had  behind  it  a  scintilla  of  evi- 
dence. When  a  man  brings  forward  a  statement  of 
this  kind  and  does  it  lightly,  the  talk  is  a  boomerang, 
such  as  the  savages  in  Australia  use,  and  smites  the 
thrower.  When  I  told  him  that  I  had  seen  Bella- 
chini,  the  court  conjurer  of  the  Emperor  William, 
perform  his  best  exploits,  Wundt  went  on  to  affirm 
that  the  feats  of  this  magician  were  as  inexplicable  as 
those  of  Slade.  "I  cannot  explain  what  Bellachini 
does,"  said  Wundt ;  "  nor  can  I  explain  what  Slade 
does,  and  what  Zollner  and  three  or  four  other  sci- 
entific German  professors  say  they  saw."  I  asked 
him  if  he  supposed  the  affidavit  of  Bellachini,  that 


166  OCCIDENT. 

he  cannot  explain  what  Slade  does,  was  genuine ; 
and  he  replied  that  he  believed  it  was.  The  doc- 
ument was  quoted  everywhere,  and  Bellachini  had 
never  denied  its  authenticity.  I  happened  to  have 
a  copy  of  the  affidavit  with  me  in  the  appendix  to 
the  English  edition  of  Zollner's  "  Transcendental 
Physics,"  and  called  Wundt's  attention  to  the  paper. 
As  I  handed  him  the  book,  he  saw  Zollner's  name  on 
it,  and  asked  what  book  this  was,  and  cringed  again, 
in  a  peculiar  way,  as  he  read  the  title-page.  He  ad- 
mitted that  many  German  theologians  believe  that 
there  is  modern  evidence  of  the  existence  and  agency 
of  evil  spirits;  but  these  teachers,  he  thought,  were 
only  half  enlightened.  The  secretary  of  Du  Bois 
Reymond  had  explained  and  paralleled  Slade's  slate- 
writing.  Professor  Wundt  believed  that  an  explana- 
tion of  the  methods  of  performing  this  trick  was  for 
sale  in  Berlin  at  a  high  price.  Ulrici,  who  had  at 
first  discussed,  with  much  earnestness,  Zollner's  facts, 
was  now,  according  to  Wundt,  disposed  to  withdraw 
a  little  from  his  earlier  positions,  and  to  represent 
spiritualism  as  a  question,  indeed,  and  a  scientific 
question,  and  yet  as  only  a  question. 

Allow  me  to  ask  you  to  notice  that  I  am  rather 
inclined  to  believe  that  what  is  called  slate-writing 
in  spiritistic  circles  is  a  trick.  Nevertheless,  I  have 
never  seen  any  good  proof  that  it  is  a  fraud,  and  I  am 
searching  for  such  proof.  Many  of  you  have  found 
it,  perhaps,  and  are  perfectly  satisfied  that  the  feat 
can  be  explained.  I  know  that  a  kind  of  slate-writ- 
ing is  produced  by  conjurers  and  performers  of  the 
art  of  legerdemain ;  but  in  Germany,  though  many 


OPPONENTS   OF   ZOLLNER'S   VIEWS.  16T 

such  imitations  have  appeared,  none  of  them  seem  to 
be  accepted  as  really  genuine  parallels.  I  have  my- 
self seen  slate-writing  produced  under  circumstances 
which  I  once  detailed  before  this  assembly,  and  which 
persons  who  were  experts  in  that  investigation  pro- 
nounced inexplicable  at  the  time  by  any  theory  of 
fraud.  We  did  not  say  there  was  no  fraud  in  it ;  we 
did  not  affirm  that  it  was  not  a  trick ;  but  we  said 
that  we  could  not  explain  it.  Although  inclined  to 
think  slate-writing  a  trick,  I  deny  the  applicability 
to  that  case  of  any  so-called  exposures  of  which  I 
have  heard.  It  is  said  that  the  ver}4  psychic  who  per- 
formed this  writing  in  my  presence  has  been  exposed 
by  certain  reporters  in  Chicago.  If  so,  I  rejoice. 
No  man  is  likely  to  be  more  glad  than  I  am  to  have 
such  a  trick  thoroughly  uncovered.  I  have  heard 
that,  on  the  platform  of  this  very  temple,  a  gentle- 
man who  did  not  Wait  afterward  for  advice,  when 
he  absconded  with  certain  funds  of  the  church  over 
which  he  was  settled,  explained  this  writing.  It  may 
be  he  did ;  but  a  gentleman  who  saw  what  I  saw  in 
the  house  of  Mr.  Epes  Sargent  was  not  satisfied  that 
the  case  was  parallel  at  all.  He  is  a  gentleman  of 
high  mental  training,  of  the  coolest  judgment,  and  a 
most  pronounced  anti-spiritist.  I  will  not  name  the 
gentleman  this  morning,  although  he  is  a  friend  of 
mine  and  my  family  physician ;  but  he  published 
over  his  own  name  a  statement  that  the  exposure  on 
this  platform  was  really  no  exposure  at  all  of  what 
we  saw.  He  does  not  state  that  what  we  saw  was 
not  a  trick ;  but  he  asserts  his  belief  that  the  trick 
has  not  yet  been  exposed.     Let  us  expose  fraud  mer- 


168  OCCIDENT. 

cilessly  ;  but  let  us  be  perfectly  fair.  Let  us  see  to 
it  that  we  are  not  doubly  swindled  — -  first  by  trick- 
sters among  the  spiritualists,  and  then  by  tricksters 
who  expose  the  tricksters.  I  rejoice  in  the  efforts  of 
all  honest  exposers  of  spiritistic  mediums. 

Let  me  be  serious  here,  for  I  stand  at  the  edge  of 
a  grave  containing  one  who  was  dear  to  me  as  a 
brother.  He  was  just  entering  upon  what  I  hoped 
would  be  the  most  splendid  part  of  his  scientific 
career.  It  seems  to  me  only  yesterday  that  I  saw 
him  in  vigorous  health,  full  of  intense  anticipations 
concerning  the  progress  of  his  own  researches,  and 
laying  the  widest  plans  for  the  future.  Europe  knew 
him.  Some  of  his  volumes  had  been  translated  into 
the  German  tongue.  I  suppose  him  to  have  been 
the  most  profound  student  of  nervous  diseases  that 
the  ranks  of  our  younger  medical  men  contained. 
He  was  a  prolific  author,  and  was  rapidly  transmuting 
the  more  hasty  work  of  his  early  years  into  the  solid 
work  of  his  maturity.  Seized  by  pneumonia,  my 
classmate,  my  room-mate,  my  friend,  Dr.  George  M. 
Beard,  of  New  York  city,  has  passed  into  the  world 
into  which  all  men  haste.  I  have  the  most  pathetic 
joy,  in  the  midst  of  my  tears,  in  repeating  before 
this  assembly  his  last  words :  "  Let  some  one  take 
up  and  carry  on  my  investigations." 

Do  not  accuse  me,  in  these  circumstances,  of  wish- 
ing to  repress  efforts  to  expose  all  the  subtilities  of 
fraud  in  connection  with  spiritistic  circles.  There  is 
no  more  glorious  work  into  which  spiritists  them- 
selves can  enter  for  the  benefit  of  their  own  cause 
than  to  do  this,  and  certainly  they  should  be  seconded 


OPPONENTS   OF   ZOLLNER'S   VIEWS.  169 

by  the  keenest  wisdom  of  the  medical  profession.  I 
would  have  America  imitate  Great  Britain  and  or- 
ganize a  dialectic  society,  like  that  of  which  Sir  John 
Lubbock  was  chairman,  and  put  into  it  some  of  the 
best  men  who  can  spare  time  to  expose  thoroughly 
spiritistic  tricks  and  half-truths,  for  tlie  purpose  of 
putting  an  end  to  mischief  of  enormous  proportions 
among  those  who  believe  in  the  trustworthiness,  as  well 
as  in  the  reality,  of  alleged  spiritistic  communications. 
I  would  have  the  work  of  my  friend,  in  carrying  on 
the  study  of  trance  and  various  diseases  of  the  nerves, 
pushed  forward  until  we  have  a  science  of  the  nerv- 
ous system.  We  do  not  possess  it  yet.  It  is  time 
in  our  age  of  the  world  that  the  unexplored  remain- 
ders of  the  human  constitution  should  be  illuminated, 
if  possible,  to  the  last  fraction.  It  may  be  that  we 
shall  find  in  them  nothing  more  than  we  now  have, 
or  even  less ;  but  in  Heaven's  name  let  us  explore 
the  unknown  in  our  own  organisms. 

Ulrici,  the  foremost  philosopher  of  Germany  since 
the  death  of  Lotze,  assured  me  that  neither  Professor 
Christiani,  nor  Du  Bois  Reymond's  secretary,  nor  any 
one  else,  to  his  knowledge,  has  ever  explained  Zoll- 
ner's  alleged  facts  as  to  slate-writing.  All  Germany 
would  ring  with  the  explanation  if  any  real  one  were 
given.  He  regards  spiritualism,  however,  as  only 
an  "  if  "  and  a  "  perhaps,"  —  a  scientific  question, 
indeed;  but  nothing  more  than  a  question.  He  be- 
lieves that  it  is  not  well  for  students  to  spend  their 
time  on  this  matter,  for  they  are  likely  to  be  misled. 
Only  the  acutest  experts  are  safe  when  they  enter 
on  this  path.     He  would  dissuade  average  citizens 


170  OCCIDENT. 

of  any  country  from  attending  seances.  He  would 
not  cultivate  spiritualistic  knowledge  as  a  joopular 
matter  ;  but  he  w^ould  have  elaborate  investigation 
concerning  it  made  by  men  thoroughly  equipped 
as  experts.  What  good  does  he  expect  from  even 
their  investigation  ?  Precisely  the  benefit  which  has 
been  prophesied  often  on  this  platform ;  first,  the  ex- 
posure of  fraud,  and,  next,  the  discovery  of  any  im- 
portant truths  yet  veiled  from  us  in  the  unexplored 
remainders  of  the  human  constitution.  He  believes 
that  we  do  not  need  any  more  evidence  of  immor- 
tality than  we  now  have  from  the  Scriptures  and 
from  reason.  At  least,  they  who  are  believers  in  the 
Scriptures  and  in  the  supernatural  voices  of  con- 
science need  no  more  evidence ;  but  materialists 
may  need  more.  What  Zollner  called  transcenden- 
tal physics,  Ulrici  thinks  of  great  importance  in  the 
current  conflict  with  materialistic,  atheistic,  and  ag- 
nostic doubt.  (See  the  "  New  Englander  "  for  1882, 
and  January,  1883,  for  translations  of  Wundt's  and 
Ulrici's  articles  on  Spiritism.) 

To  summarize,  then,  this  whole  discussion  as  to 
advanced  thought  in  German  philosophy  :  — 

1.  Professor  Zollner  had  and  has  vehement  oppo- 
nents in  the  highest  circles  of  learning  in  Germany  ; 
nevertheless,  his  alleged  facts  have  reached  the  ear 
of  science  in  Europe. 

2.  What  is  needed  is  a  repetition  of  his  experi- 
ments and  thorough  researches  in  the  whole  matter, 
in  obedience  to  all  the  verifying  laws  of  the  scientific 
method. 

It  was  my  fortune  to  assure  Professor  Zollner  that 


OPPONENTS    OF   ZOLLNER's    VIEWS.  171 

Americans  do  not  believe  in  the  psychic  lie  em- 
ployed ;  that  we  regard  him  as  a  cheat ;  that  we  have 
proved  him  over  and  over  to  be  in  many  things  a 
fraud  ;  and  that  England  came  near  putting  him  in 
jail  for  practising  jugglery.  "  Very  well,"  said  Pro- 
fessor Zollner ;  '*  here  in  Germany  Mr.  Slade  always 
acted  as  a  man  of  honor."  I  said  :  "  The  world  does 
not  believe  in  him.  Your  supreme  duty  to  science  is 
to  repeat  your  experiments  with  some  one  who  is  not 
under  suspicion,  and  in  circumstances  wholly  above 
the  charge  of  fraud." 

3.  It  has  not  yet  been  scientifically  proved  that  the 
so-called  slate-writing  is  not  a  trick,  and  the  claim  is 
frequently  made  in  high  quarters  that  it  has  been 
performed  by  methods  of  jugglery. 

4.  Professor  Zollner  was  not  a  believer  in  the 
trustworthiness,  though  he  was  in  the  reality  of  spir- 
itistic communications. 

5.  He  ought  not  to  be  called  a  spiritist,  but  rather 
a  biblical  demonologist. 

6.  He  believed  that  the  Bible  is  the  only  safe 
guide  as  to  our  theories  concerning  spirits,  good  and 
bad. 

7.  He  was  a  thorough  believer  in  the  biblical  doc- 
trine of  the  supernatural.  He  regarded  the  progress 
of  psychical  science  as  certain  to  confirm  among  men 
of  science  faith  in  the  supernatural  in  its  biblical 
sense. 

8.  If  it  should  ever  he  shown,  as  it  has  not  been  yet^ 
that  Zollner' s  alleged  facts  were  real  ones,  the  only 
scientific  conclusions  that  can  he  deduced  from  them 
are  those  Christian  ones  which  he  drew  from  them. 


172  OCCIDENT. 

I  part  here  from  Germany  with  a  full  heart.  The 
waterfalls,  the  forests,  the  roseate  peaks,  the  stealthy 
glaciers  of  Switzerland  are  around  us.  As  I  look 
back  from  the  summit  of  the  St.  Gothard  Pass,  let 
me  lift  up  my  hands  in  thankfulness  to  Almighty 
God  for  the  freedom,  the  earnestness,  and  the  breadth 
of  research  which  characterize  the  best  universities 
of  the  Fatherland.  Much  skepticism,  undoubtedly, 
has  come  out  of  Germany ;  but  the  antidote  to  it  has 
been  provided  in  Germany  also,  by  the  most  careful 
study.  Here  the  mythical  theory  arose  ;  here  it  was 
wounded  to  the  death.  Here  originated  the  haughty 
claim  concerning  myths  and  legends,  that  they  are 
capable  of  explaming  all  that  is  called  supernatural 
in  the  New  Testament  history  ;  here  that  theory  has 
been  cut  off  level  with  the  ground  from  the  very 
roots  on  which  it  stood  expecting  permanent  life.  In 
this  Germany  there  is  a  certain  amount  of  obscure, 
mystical  thinking;  there  are  torpid  churches  enough; 
but  the  heart  of  the  country,  the  heart  of  its  learn- 
ing, is  sound,  because  truly  loyal  both  to  clear  ideas 
and  to  spiritual  purposes.  The  blood  of  the  Refor- 
mation is  in  Germany.  The  head  of  a  Melancthon, 
the  heart  of  a  Luther  —  I  believe  these  can  be  har- 
monized with  the  head  of  a  Helmholtz,  a  Kant,  or  a 
Lotze.  As  I  looked  back  from  the  Alps  on  Germany, 
seeking  for  some  soul  large  enough  to  comprehend 
Luther  and  Melancthon,  and  Goethe  and  Helmholtz, 
whom  could  I  take  ?  No  one  is  large  enough  to 
comprehend  all  these  souls  ;  but  I  left  German  soil 
carrying  in  my  hands  one  of  the  works  of  Jean  Paul 
Richter,  largest  soul  of  German  literature,  profoundly 


OPPONENTS  OF   ZOLLNER's   VIEWS.  173 

Christian  —  not  in  all  respects  what  I  could  wish  m 
his  convictions  as  to  religious  truths,  but  a  spirit  so 
large  that  a  denial  of  immortality  appeared  to  him 
to  be  philosophical  lunacy:  You  put  together  Me- 
lancthon,  Luther,  Goethe  in  his  ripest  years,  Richter, 
Kant,  Lotze,  and  Helmholtz,  and  in  these  seven,  as 
you  look  back  from  the  Alps,  you  behold  a  German 
constellation  fit  to  lead  the  ages. 


VI. 


ADVANCED  THOUGHT  IN  ITALY  AND 
GREECE. 

WITH  A   PRELUDE  ON 

PKOBATION  AT  DEATH. 

THE    ONE   HUNDRED   AND    FIFTY-SIXTH    LECTURE    IN   THE 
BOSTON    MONDAY    LECTURESHIP,    DELIVERED    IN 
TREMONT   TEMPLE,  FEBRUARY  12,  1883. 


"  Really,  the  right  hand  of  God  is  everywhere.  In  this  sense  is  the 
God-man  —  who  is  at  the  right  hand  of  God  —  ubiquitous,  that  he 
may  auywliere,  at  any  moment,  reveal  himself  in  his  God-manhood  to 
the  willing  soul.  Such  ubiquity,  which  may  be  called  potential,  best 
explains  the  vision  of  martyred  Stephen,  the  vision  of  Paul  near  Da- 
mascus, and  the  beatific  vision  of  the  dying,  so  well  accredited  in  in- 
stances without  number."  —  Professor  Roswell  D.Hitchcock, 
Journal  of  Christian  Philosophy,  July,  1883,  pp.  387,  388. 

"  Christ  is  perfect  God  and  perfect  and  glorified  man  ;  as  the  for- 
mer He  is  present  everywhere,  as  the  latter  He  can  be  present  any- 
where."—  Bishop  Ellicott. 


*'  The  mountain  ridges  of  the  wall  of  the  Colosseum  stood  high  in 
the  moonlight,  with  the  deep  gaps  which  had  been  hewn  in  them  by 
the  scythe  of  time.  .  .  .  The  crater  of  the  burnt  out  volcano  once 
swallowed  nine  thousand  beasts  at  once  and  quenched  itself  w'ith  hu- 
man blood.  Here  coiled  the  giant  snake  five  times  about  Christianity 
—  like  a  smile  of  scorn  lies  the  moonlight  upon  the  green  arena  where 
once  stood  the  Colossus  of  the  Sun-God.  The  Star  of  the  North  glim- 
mers low  through  the  windows.  The  serpent  and  the  bear  crouch. 
What  a  world  has  gone  by  !  "  —  Richter,  Titan. 

"  Earth  proudly  wears  the  Parthenon 
As  the  best  gem  upon  her  zone  ; 
And  Morning  hastes  to  ope  her  lids 
To  gaze  upon  the  Pyramids." 

Emerson. 


PRELUDE   VI. 
PROBATION   AT   DEATH. 

IiMMEDiATE,  total,  and  affectionate  self-surrender 
of  the  soul  to  God  is  demanded  of  all  responsible  hu- 
man beings  every  instant  by  conscience,  wliicli  is  the 
voice  of  God.  Postponement  of  obedience  is  disobe- 
dience. All  delay  of  surrender  to  God  is  rebellion 
against  God.  The  divine  summons  is  incessant,  and 
refusal  to  obey  it  is  nothing  less  than  incessant  re- 
bellion. Choices  are  as  multitudinous  and  as  instan- 
taneous as  thoughts;  but  the  thoughts  of  a  single 
day  no  man  can  number,  and  yet  conscience  judges 
every  choice  and  all  the  secrets  of  the  thoughts  of 
the  heart.  A  continuous  evil  predominant  choice 
implies  a  continuous  series  of  subsidiary  evil  choices ; 
and  so  the  choices  of  an  evil  man  succeed  each  other 
with  the  rapidity  of  thought.  The  divine  voice  with- 
in the  soul  constantly  whispers  "Thou  oughtest,"  and 
the  soul  as  constantly  answers  "I  will  not."  It  is 
the  repetition  of  actions  that  makes  them  habitual. 
Repetition  is  the  hammer  which  forges  the  chains 
of  habit,  and  our  own  free  choices  wield  the  ham- 
mer. 

The  supreme  word  of  reason,  therefore,  speaking 
in  the  name  of  practical  wisdom  as  to  the  duty  of 
surrender  to   God,  is  Now.     The  supreme  word  of 

12 


178  OCCIDENT. 

conscience,  speaking  in  the  name  of  Eternal  Right, 
is  Noiv.  The  suj^reme  word  of  the  scientific  school 
and  of  the  Scriptural  school  in  theology  is  To-day. 
The  su23reme  word  of  the  siren  school  and  of  every 
form  of  false  liberalism  is  To-morrow^  a  more  con- 
venient season,  or,  possibly,  the  intermediate  state. 
Incessant  repetition  of  rebellious  resolves,  in  defiance 
of  incessant  solicitations  from  the  divine  voice  of 
conscience,  must  ultimately,  under  natural  law,  fix 
character  in  the  sense  of  making  its  moral  state  per- 
manent. 

Hold  unflinchingly  to  the  first  truths,  the  funda- 
mental, primary  religious  verities,  that  similarity  of 
feeling  with  God  is  necessary  to  peace  in  his  pres- 
ence, and  that  the  longer  we  live  in  dissimilarity  of 
feeling  with  Him  the  longer  we  are  likely  to  do  so. 
It  is  self-evident  that  we  must  love  what  God  loves 
and  hate  what  He  hates,  and  that  otherwise  there  is 
no  possibility  of  peace  for  us  in  his  presence.  It  is 
utterly  indisputable,  also,  that  the  longer  we  live  in 
the  love  of  what  He  hates  and  in  the  hate  of  what 
He  loves,  the  longer  we  are  likely  to  do  so. 

As  the  New  England  and  all  sound  theology  has 
taught  for  centuries,  when  the  soul  puts  forth  its  first 
evil  choice  it  takes  sides  against  God.  So  far  forth 
as  depends  on  itself,  it  does  in  that  single  predomi- 
nant intention,  in  that  initial  moral  resolve  to  rebel, 
put  itself  into  its  spiritual  grave.  Unless  God  ex- 
erts the  special  influences  of  the  Holy  Spirit  upon 
sucli  a  soul,  it  will  never  rise  out  of  its  grave.  The 
soul  that  decides  once  against  God  continues  to  be 
against  God  until  it  repents.     It  is  the  teaching  of 


PEOBATION  AT   DEATH.  179 

accredited  theological  science  that  we  have  no  rea- 
son from  Scripture  to  believe  that  a  soul  that  has 
sinned  even  once  against  God  will  repent,  unless  God 
especially  draw  it,  renew  it,  and  lift  it  out  of  death 
by  a  spiritual  resurrection. 

Endeavoring  to  show  from  mere  reason  that  there 
is  natural  proof  that  death  may  end  probation,  I 
affirm  that  it  is  utterly  futile  for  opponents  of  this 
position  to  say  that  it  is  a  mere  guess.  If  I  do  not 
know  whether  a  fortress  in  which  I  am  placed  as 
commander  is  to  be  attacked  to-night  or  to-morrow 
morning,  it  avails  nothing  for  me  to  say  :  "I  fancy 
that  the  attack  may  not  be  until  to-morrow  morn- 
ing." A  surmise  on  that  side  of  the  case  is  worth- 
less. To  lean  on  any  guess  of  that  kind  would  be  in- 
sanity of  the  worst  sort ;  but  a  guess  on  the  other 
side  of  the  case,  even  if  it  is  only  a  guess,  will  gov- 
ern my  action.  "  I  surmise,"  so  the  scout  tells  me, 
"  that  there  may  be  an  attack  to-night !  "  I  will  be 
ready,  in  any  event.  "  What  I  say  unto  you  I  say 
unto  all :  Watch  I  "  So  speak  the  Scriptures  them- 
selves. 

Such  being  the  stern  facts  which  constitute  the 
framework  of  my  discussion,  I  now  raise  the  central 
question :  What  constitutes  probation  by  death  seen 
at  a  distance,  by  death  near  at  hand,  and  by  death 
at  its  supreme  moment  ? 

1.  Distant  views  of  death  have  been  disregarded, 
and  their  natural  moral  influence  persistently  re- 
sisted, by  any  one  of  advanced  or  middle  age  who 
approaches  death  unrepentant. 

2.  Such  persons  as  resist  the  natural  moral  in- 


180  OCCIDENT. 

Alienees  of  death  foreseen  at  a  distance  may  very 
naturally  resist  its  moral  influences  when  it  is  close 
at  hand.  It  is  the  general  experience  of  the  human 
race,  and  even  of  average  populations  in  Christen- 
dom, that  most  men  of  middle  or  advanced  life  die 
as  they  have  lived.  They  usually  pass  out  of  the 
world  remaining,  to  outward  appearance,  in  the  gen- 
eral moral  state  m  which  they  have  drifted  through 
life. 

3.  In  perhaps  seven  cases  out  of  ten  those  who  ap- 
pear to  repent,  in  view  of  death  supposed  to  be  near 
at  hand,  show  by  their  lives,  when  they  are  delivered 
from  fear  of  deatb,  that  their  repentance  was  not 
genuine.  In  proof  of  the  truth  of  this  assertion,  I 
must  appeal  to  the  sacred  experiences  of  the  pastors 
around  me,  in  their  profound  and  close  studies  of  hu- 
man character  in  its  great  moral  crises. 

4.  To  the  unrepentant  soul,  the  discipline  of  death 
is  one  of  fear  chiefly.  This,  although  the  beginning 
of  wisdom,  is  not  the  end  of  it.  The  moral  motives, 
which  include  both  the  fear  and  the  love  of  God, 
may  be  presented  more  powerfully  to  the  soul  in  life 
than  they  well  can  be  in  death. 

5.  There  is  probation  by  comparatively  near  views 
of  the  mountain-range  of  death  and  by  the  thought 
of  what  lies  beyond  it. 

6.  There  is  probation  in  close  approach  to  this 
range. 

7.  There  is  probation  in  leaving  the  plain  and  as- 
cending the  slope  of  the  range. 

8.  There  is  probation  in  leaving  behind,  once  for 
all,  the  affairs  of  the  world  and  the  temptations  of 
the  flesh. 


PROBATION   AT   DEATH.  181 

9.  There  is  probation  in  ascending  high  enough  on 
the  mountain-range  of  death  to  have  wide  outlooks, 
in  the  breadth  and  elevation  and  seriousness  of  which 
the  whole  aspect  of  life  is  changed. 

I  figure  to  myself  our  passage  through  life  to 
death  as  like  the  crossing  of  the  tropical  portion  of 
our  continent  from  Atlantic  to  Pacific,  with  the  An- 
des in  view  at  a  distance.  Occasionally,  as  Words- 
worth tells  us,  we  hear  far  inland  the  roar  of  the 
ocean  on  the  East  of  life.  It  is  long  before  childhood 
ceases  to  have  intimations  of  immortality.  Many  a 
time,  on  the  height  of  our  best  experiences  in  youth, 
we  have  wide  outlooks,  backward  as  well  as  forward. 
For  one,  I  think  those  elevated  experiences  which 
come  to  comparatively  uncorrupted  young  souls  are 
full  of  really  divine  voices  and  actually  supernatural 
touches  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  These  influences  may 
bring  the  soul  into  a  natural  religiousness,  which  is 
not  Christianity,  indeed,  and  not  sufficient  to  save 
the  soul ;  but  is  a  general  preparation  for  the  re- 
ception of  the  regenerating  truths  of  our  holy  faith. 
I  believe,  in  short,  with  one  of  the  great  fathers  of 
the  Church,  that  the  soul  is  naturally  Christian.  It 
usually  appears  such  in  the  high  moments  of  early 
life  when  youth  is  pure.  It  is  in  man,  as  man,  to 
remember  whence  he  came.  It  is  in  man,  as  man, 
to  find  on  the  summit  of  his  nature  the  place  for  an 
altar  to  Almighty  God.  Richter  says  that  on  every 
hill-top,  in  the  summits  of  the  loftiest  natures  of 
every  nation,  will  be  found  an  altar  to  the  unseen, 
personal  God. 

As  we  go  on  in  life,  and  look  across  the  Brazilian 


182  OCCIDENT. 

plain  towards  the  sunset,  we  behold  from  afar  the 
Andes,  the  termmal  experiences  of  death.  "We  do 
not  always  see  them  while  we  are  in  the  dust  of  the 
wayside.  We  are  oblivious  both  of  what  is  behind 
us  and  of  what  is  before  us  when  we  are  among 
the  wild  beasts  of  the  forests.  We  lie  down  many 
nights,  it  may  be,  under  the  roaring  tempests  and 
the  creaking  boughs,  under  terrible  tropical  rains 
and  lightnings,  and  listen  to  the  thunders  of  the 
passing  storm,  and  forget  the  rolling  of  the  ocean  on 
the  East,  and  do  not  even  ask  whether  there  is  an 
ocean  rolling  beyond  the  Andes  at  the  West.  But 
great  moments  come  again.  We  ascend  the  hill-tops. 
We  have  far,  clear  views  of  the  terminal  range.  And 
then,  sooner  or  later,  we  do  come  to  the  edge  of  that 
range.  We  perceive  vividly  that  we  are  leaving  the 
level  plain  of  middle  life.  We  ascend  to  the  begin- 
nings of  old  age,  and  the  outlook  broadens.  Some- 
times sudden  death  gives  us  instantly  an  elevation 
to  the  height  of  this  range,  and  the  quick  transition 
from  a  low  plane  of  experience  to  an  elevated  one 
brings  what  seems  to  be  almost  a  supernatural  move- 
ment of  the  soul.  The  elevated  thought  and  feeling 
natural  to  a  near  approach  to  death  constitute  usu- 
ally a  great  spiritual  experience,  and  the  soul  must 
decide  for  or  against  any  light  that  comes  to  it  in 
this  loftier  view. 

10.  Most  commonly  the  summits  of  the  mountains 
of  death  are  veiled  in  mists.  There  are  compara- 
tively few  deaths  in  which  the  faculties  of  the  soul 
retain  their  balance  and  have  clear  vision  to  the  very 
summit  of  transition  from  time  to  eternity. 


PKOBATION  AT  DEATH.  183 

11.  Nevertheless,  tliere  is  in  many  average  cases, 
before  consciousness  is  lost,  a  marvelous  quickening 
of  conscience  and  memory  when  death  is  expected 
instantly  and  by  unimpaired  faculties. 

Physiologists  themselves  say  that  in  death,  after 
the  power  of  speech,  and  even  of  motion,  is  lost, 
there  may  be  a  quickening  of  memory  bringing  the 
whole  life  before  conscience,  because  attention  is 
taken  off  the  external  world.  Draper  says  ("Hu- 
man Physiology,"  p.  562),  very  suggestively  : 
"Doubtless  the  mmd  in  the  solemn  moment  of  death 
is  sometimes  occupied  with  an  instantaneous  review 
of  impressions  long  before  made  upon  the  brain,  and 
which  offer  themselves  with  clearness  and  energy, 
now  that  present  circumstances  are  failing  to  excite 
its  attention  through  loss  of  sensorial  power  of  the 
peripheral  organs,  this  state  of  things  having  also 
been  testified  to  by  those  who  have  been  recovered 
from  drowning."  This  marvelous  awakening  of 
memory  may  occur  even  when  all  the  external  senses 
are  active.  When  once,  in  expectation  of  instant 
death,  my  whole  life  was  thrown  before  me  vividly, 
as  if  in  panoramic  vision,  I  was  exceedingly  atten- 
tive to  what  was  going  on  outside  of  me.  When 
I  felt  a  torch  lighted  inside  my  brain,  my  attention 
was  not  taken  off  external  things.  I  was  very  anx- 
ious to  know  whether  the  railway  coach,  in  which 
I  was  being  thrown  down  a  rocky  bank,  was  to  be 
instantly  dashed  to  pieces,  whether  it  was  to  take 
fire,  whether  my  death  was  to  be  by  a  swift  concus- 
sion with  the  rocks,  or  whether  I  was  to  be  burned 
alive.     The  first   thing  said  after  the  coach  struck 


184  OCCIDENT. 

and  ever}' thing  inside  of  it  fell  into  a  oliaos  of  wreck, 
was :  "  Are  there  any  lights  burning  ?  Put  them 
out ! "  Every  passenger  had  his  mind  on  that 
thought,  the  possibility  of  horrible  death  by  burning. 
But,  although  my  mind  was  thus  intensely  occupied 
by  what  was  outside  of  me,  the  whole  of  my  life,  in 
its  moral  relations,  from  earliest  youth  to  the  latest 
hour,  flashed  before  me  instantaneously,  but  vividly. 

12.  When  the  faculties  of  the  soul  remain  unim- 
paired, there  is  probation  in  arrival  at  the  summit  of 
the  mountain-range  of  death  and  in  the  outlook  be- 
yond. 

In  life,  as  in  the  sky,  there  are  few  perfectly  clear 
sunsets.  Sometimes,  however,  the  sky  is  unclouded 
until  the  very  last,  and  we  may  observe  the  whole 
outward  appearance  of  the  setting  orb  until  it  disap- 
pears. Such  cases,  in  which  the  mental  and  moral 
faculties  seem  to  be  unimpaired  to  the  very  end,  are 
exceedingly  instructive  and  deserve  the  most  careful 
inductive  study. 

13.  What  are  the  experiences  of  the  soul  in  the 
supreme  moment  of  death,  when  an  outlook  beyond 
its  summit  appears  to  be  vouchsafed  to  some  ? 

In  the  most  remarkable  exceptional  cases  there 
have  been  observed  in  the  dying :  (1)  a  starting  up 
of  the  body,  but  in  a  manner  different  from  auto- 
matic action  ;  (2)  a  pointing  with  the  hand,  but  with 
a  definiteness  and  steadiness  not  explicable  by  au- 
tomatism ;  (3)  a  look  as  if  at  the  appearance  of  a 
sudden  vision  and  most  appreciably  different  from 
the  merely  automatic  stare  ;  (4)  a  steady,  intense, 
intelligent  gaze;  (5)  frequent  mysterious  brighten- 


PBOBATION   AT   DEATH.  185 

ing  of  the  eyes  ;  (6)  a  strange  luminoiisness  of  face ; 
(7)  sometimes  the  hearmg  of  strange  voices ;  (8) 
sometimes  emphatic  words.  It  is  a  fact  of  science 
that  in  the  dying  the  eyes  often  mysteriously  brighten 
just  before  they  glaze. 

14.  It  is  possible  that  the  peculiar  experiences 
here  described  may  all  be  susceptible  of  a  scientific, 
physiological,  or  psychological  explanation  as  wholly 
subjective  in  origin. 

15.  It  is  perhaps  certain  that  they  are  thus  expli- 
cable in  many  cases. 

16.  It  is  improbable,  however,  that  they  are  thus 
explicable  in  all  cases.    This  improbability  rests  on  — 

(1.)  The  earnestness,  reality,  and  unexpectedness 
of  the  emotions  displayed  by  the  dying  in  these  high- 
est experiences. 

(2.)  The  sameness  of  the  experiences  in  persons 
of  different  temperaments,  education,  and  beliefs. 

(3.)  The  great  number  of  those  who  have  exhib- 
ited these  signs. 

(4.)  The  differences  in  minute  detail  between 
what  occurs  in  mere  trance  and  hallucination  and 
automatic  action  of  the  brain,  on  the  one  hand,  and 
what  is  observed  in  some  of  these  experiences,  on 
the  other. 

There  are  lying  here  at  my  side  the  authentic  rec- 
ords of  twenty  cases  illustrating  the  experiences  of 
the  dying  in  what  appears  to  be  an  outlook  from  the 
summit  of  death  upon  a  world  beyond  it. 

Here  is  a  famous  essay  by  Frances  Power  Cobbe 
entitled  "  The  Peak  in  Darien  ;  or.  The  Riddle  of 
Death."     She  is  no  partisan  on  the  side  of  evangel- 


186  OCCIDENT. 

ical  tlieolog}'',  but  she  summarizes  in  this  article  a  long 
list  of  experiences  in  which  just  such  visions  beyond 
the  peak  of  death  appear  to  have  been  had  by  the 
coolest,  most  unimj^assioned  persons  in  their  dying 
moments.  The  late  Dr.  Clarke,  a  physician  of  great 
eminence  in  this  city,  published  a  thoroughly  scien- 
tific work  on  ''Visions,"  and  its  introduction  was 
written  by  Dr.  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes.  In  that 
volume,  which  is  sufficiently  skeptical  as  to  the  objec- 
tive reality  of  anything  seen  in  vision  by  the  dying 
(see  pp.  258-272),  an  admission  is  made  (p.  274) 
which  cannot  very  easily  be  set  down  as  mere  hallu- 
cination. "  Probably  all  such  visions  as  these,"  says 
Dr.  Clarke,  "  are  automatic.  But  yet,  who,  believing 
in  God  and  personal  immortality,  as  the  writer  re- 
joices in  doing,  will  dare  to  say  absolutely  all?  will 
dare  to  assert  there  is  no  possible  exception  ?  If  life 
is  continuous,  heaven  beyond  and  death  the  portal,  is 
it  philosophical  to  affirm  that  no  one  entering  that 
portal  has  ever  caught  a  glimpse  or  can  ever  catch  a 
glimpse,  before  he  is  utterly  freed  from  the  flesh,  of 
the  glory  beyond?  The  pure  materialist,  sad  disci- 
ple of  Nihilism,  may  dispute  this ;  but  no  Theist  or 
Christian  will  be  bold  enough  to  deny  it"  (p.  272). 
"  There  would  be  no  revival  of  brain-cells,  stamped 
with  earthly  memories  and  scenes,  but  something 
seen  of  which  the  brain  had  received  no  antecedent 
impression  and  of  which  the  Ego  had  formed  no  con- 
ception. Entranced  by  a  glimpse  of  what  eye  hath 
not  seen  nor  ear  heard  and  of  which  man  has  formed 
no  conception,  the  gaze  of  the  departing  spirit  would 
be  riveted  upon  a  glory  invisible  to  his  earthly  com- 


PROBATION   AT   DEATH.  187 

panions.  His  features  would  be  transfigured,  and 
those  around  him  would  be  amazed,  perhaps  appalled, 
at  the  sight,  as  some  fishermen  were,  two  thousand 
years  ago,  upon  a  mountain  in  Galilee,  by  the  tran- 
scendent glory  of  a  familiar  face."  ("Visions  :  A 
Study  of  False  Sight,"  by  Dr.  E.  H.  Clarke.  Boston, 
1878,  p.  278.) 

You  dare  not  look  at  the  holiest  facts  of  death  ? 
You  dare  not  avert  your  eyes  from  them  !  These  are 
verities  that  hush  the  house,  because  they  are  verities 
into  which  we  are  all  drifting.  Death  is  so  great  a 
fact  that  it  is  the  only  circumstance  we  are  permitted 
to  see  with  certainty  in  our  futures.  Nothing  else  is 
certain  ;  but  it  is  certain  that  every  eye  here  will 
glaze,  every  breath,  every  pulse,  pause,  every  form 
grow  cold  and  turn  to  dust.  Nothing  in  all  our  fu- 
ture is  really  certain  but  our  exit.  There  is  nothing 
so  high  in  life  as  the  opportunity  it  gives  of  going  up 
higher  ;  there  is  nothmg  so  much  worth  living  for  in 
life  as  death.  He  is  a  fool  who  has  not  looked  through 
life  and  obtained  such  a  vision  of  eternity  as  to  con- 
stitute an  inspiration.  He  is  a  weakling  in  life  who 
has  not  leaned  forward  far  enough  to  obtain  an  inha- 
lation from  the  other  world  for  use  in  this.  Thomas 
Carlyle  was  always  citing  Goethe's  Mason's  Song :  — 

"  Silent  before  us, 
Veiled  the  dark  portal, 
Goal  of  all  mortal. 
Stars  over  us  silent, 
Graves  under  us  silent. 
Choose  well,  your  choice 
Brief  is  but  endless. 


188  OCCIDENT. 

Here  in  eternity 
Eyes  to  regard  you, 
Here  is  all  fulness, 
Ye  brave,  to  reward  you. 
Work  and  despair  not." 

17.  There  may  be  cases  when  in  death,  at  the  su- 
preme moment,  the  good  may  see  those  who  have 
gone  before  them,  and,  perhaps,  first  of  all,  those 
nearest  and  dearest  among  those  that  have  been  taken 
from  them.  It  is  said  of  the  martyr  Stephen  that  he 
saw  heaven  opened  and  Jesus  standing  at  the  right 
hand  of  God. 

18.  There  may  be  cases  in  which  the  evil  may  see 
in  death  those  whom  they  have  injured:  a  Nero  those 
he  has  slain;  a  Charles  IX.  those  he  has  massacred; 
and  the  murderer  or  adulterer  may  meet  his  victims. 

19.  After  this  mysterious  experience  of  a  supreme 
outlook  beyond  death,  the  soul  sometimes  retains 
power  enough  over  the  body  to  speak ;  and,  of  course, 
its  probation  is  not  over  in  such  cases. 

20.  In  these  cases,  therefore,  there  must  be  proba- 
tion by  any  light  which  comes  to  the  evil  soul  or  to 
the  good  in  the  supreme  moment,  for  this  light  must 
be  accepted  or  rejected. 

Allow  me  to  ask  you  to  notice  that  I  make  nothing 
whatever  in  this  argument  depend  upon  the  determi- 
nation of  the  precise  moment  or  manner  of  death 
considered  as  a  physical  change,  but  everything  upon 
its  character  considered  as  a  spiritual  experience. 
Nor  do  I  insist  at  all  upon  those  exceptional  types 
of  experience  which  must,  indeed,  not  be  overlooked, 
but  are  not  essential  to  my  chief  purjiose. 


PROBATION   AT   DEATH.  189 

21.  A  distinction  must  be  made  between  real  and 
apparent  death. 

It  is  true,  to  be  sure,  that  it  is  not  agreed  among 
men  of  science  precisely  when  the  separation  of  the 
soul  from  the  body  occurs  ;  but  such  separation  is 
the  ordinary  definition  of  death.  This  definition  is 
all  the  better  for  being  trite.  It  is  the  accepted  defi- 
nition. There  has  been  a  prize  offered  in  France  for 
many  years  for  an  unmistakable  sign  of  death.  Ces- 
sation of  the  breath  is  not  always  that  sign,  cessation 
of  the  pulse  is  not,  for  both  breath  and  pulse  cease  in 
cases  of  suspended  animation.  In  saying  that  the 
light  of  eternity  sometimes  dawns  on  the  soul  before 
the  eyes  are  closed  to  this  world,  I  assert  what  to  all 
appearance  is  scientifically  demonstrable  ;  but  I,  of 
course,  do  not  mean  the  full  light  of  eternity. 

The  physiological  truth  is  that  breathing  does  not 
cease,  usually,  until  after  the  eyes  glaze,  and  the 
Qjes  brighten  before  they  glaze  in  many  cases,  when 
the  faculties  are  unobscured  at  the  last  moment  of 
life.  The  development  of  the  heat  of  the  body  and 
several  other  organic  functions  continue  for  a  time 
after  breath  and  pulse  cease.  (See  Draper's  "  Phys- 
iology," p.  562.)  According  to  some  definitions  of 
death,  it  does  not  close  until  the  natural  heat  of  the 
body  passes  away. 

22.  Whether  rapid  or  otherwise,  death  is  the  sep- 
aration of  the  soul  from  the  body,  and  probation  is 
not  over  until  death  ends. 

23.  Probation  m  death,  however  rapid,  includes 
time  for  decision  for  or  against  all  the  light  it  brings. 

24.  It   is  rational  to  believe  that    he   who  passes 


190  OCCIDENT. 

through  probation  hy  death  seen  at  a  distance^  and  hy 
death  near  at  hand^  and  hy  death  at  its  supreme  mo- 
ment^ unrepentant^  ivill  he  so  hardened  and  blinded 
by  resisting  all  the  light  of  these  mighty  spiritual  ex- 
periences that  he  ivill  7iever  repent. 

This  position  is  reinforced  by  the  three  great  facts 
already  noticed  in  another  connection :  (1)  that  he 
who  comes  to  death  unrepentant  must  have  resisted 
its  natural  moral  influences,  as  it  is  seen  from  a  dis- 
tance, and  so  have  hardened  and  blinded  his  soul  by 
sin  against  light ;  (2)  that  most  men  of  middle  or 
advanced  life  die  as  they  have  lived ;  and  (3)  that 
probably  seven  cases  out  of  ten  of  apparent  repent- 
ance in  presence  of  death  turn  out  not  to  be  genuine 
if  life  is  spared. 

25.  Mere  reason,  therefore,  makes  it  highly  prob- 
able that  death  ends  probation.  Under  natural  law 
and  the  continuous  repetitions  of  moral  choices  by 
tlie  soul,  probation  before  death  appears  to  be  enough, 
and  probation  at  death  more  than  enough,  to  fix 
character,  at  least  in  germ. 

26.  It  has  been  shown  that  what  reason  makes 
probable  on  this  point  the  Scriptures  make  certain. 

27.  The  supreme  dictate  of  practical  wisdom  coin- 
cides demonstrably,  therefore,  with  the  imperative  and 
incessant  mandate  of  conscience,  with  all  the  unsj^eak- 
able  promptings  of  the  Divine  love  and  mercy,  as 
seen  in  both  Nature  and  revelation,  and  with  the  con- 
stantly reiterated  command  of  the  Scriptures,  and 
makes  total,  affectionate,  irreversible  self-surrender  of 
t]ie  soul  to  God  its  duty  this  instant. 

Inventing  no  new  theory  of  probation,  I  have  sim- 


PKOBATION   AT   DEATH.  191 

ply  analyzed  notorious  facts  and  found  behind  them 
enough  to  fill  our  faces  with  the  whiteness  of  awe  in 
the  presence  of  the  natural  laws  which  govern  char- 
acter. My  chief  propositions  are  that  the  light  which 
death  brings  is  not  likely  to  save  the  soul,  but  that 
resistance  to  this  light  may  ruin  the  soul.  It  is  not 
likely  to  save,  for  he  who  has  resisted  all  light  up  to 
death  is  almost  certain  to  resist  light  in  death.  It 
may  ruin,  for  he  who  resists  all  light  up  to  death  and 
in  death,  probably  commits  unpardonable  sin,  and 
fixes  the  permanent  bent  of  his  character.  Sinning 
against  the  light  blinds  us  to  the  light,  and  he  who, 
under  the  constant  summons  of  God  in  conscience 
to  repent,  constantly  replies  in  the  negative,  and 
does  so  on  the  approach  of  death,  and  in  death,  and, 
when  the  light  which  the  last  moment  emphasizes 
or  reveals,  breaks  upon  him,  may  be  expected,  under 
natural  law,  never  to  repent.  "  Now  is  the  accepted 
time;  now  is  the  day  of  salvation."  This  is  the 
voice  of  all  the  constellations  in  the  merely  natural 
sky  of  reason.  It  is  the  voice  of  all  the  constella- 
tions in  the  sky  of  revelation.  May  God  give  us 
Avisdom  to  obey  these  voices  instantly !  [Many 
voices :    "  Amen  !  "  "  Amen  !  "] 


LECTURE  VI. 

ADVANCED  THOUGHT  IN  ITALY  AND  GREECE. 

Cesar's  work  is  nine  tentlis  undone  ;  that  of 
Peter  and  Paul  remains.  Rome  is  more  tlieirs  than 
his.  Let  us  not  underrate  what  ancient  Rome  has 
done  for  jurisprudence,  literature,  and  art ;  but  the 
relations  of  Rome,  ancient  and  modern,  to  Christian- 
ity are  a  yet  more  important  theme. 

What  is  to  be  said  of  advanced  thought  in  Italy  ? 
Chiefly  that  it  is  undermining  the  Papacy,  upsetting 
Romanism,  putting  an  end  to  Vaticanism,  but  not 
that  it  is  annihilating  Catholicism.  Separate  for  me 
the  pure  portions  of  the  Catholic  faith  from  the  ac- 
cretions of  Vaticanism,  Romanism,  and  the  Papacy, 
and,  although  I  may  retain  the  liberty,  even  after 
such  sifting,  to  make  many  criticisms  of  the  resid- 
uum, I  should,  nevertheless,  be  obliged  to  say  God- 
speed to  the  central  parts  of  the  Reformed  Catholic 
faith.  Dean  Stanley  was  not  without  hope  that  the 
English  Church,  tlie  Greek  Church,  and  a  Reformed 
Catholic  Church  miglit  establish  a  loose  union.  If 
this  is  a  wild  expectation,  there  is,  nevertheless, 
much  reason  to  believe  that  Catholicism  will  be 
slowly  purified  as  the  intelligence  of  the  masses  of 
Catholic  populations  increases.  One  of  Luther's 
benedictions  to  Melancthon  was :  "  May  God  fill  your 


ADVANCED   THOUGHT  IN   ITALY   AND  GREECE.      193 

heart  with  hatred  of  the  papacy."  Melancthon  him- 
self did  not  care  to  see  a  reformed  Catholicism,  even 
if  it  had  some  central  ecclesiastical  power  at  Rome, 
disappear.  I  do  wish  to  see  Romanism,  in  the  sense 
of  Vaticanism,  vanish  as  vapor  before  the  sun,  and 
pass  completely  out  of  sight  or  ken  of  the  human 
race.  I  abhor  Vaticanism,  and  Romanism,  if  by 
Romanism  you  mean  Vaticanism  ;  but  Catholicism, 
under  which  term  I  would  summarize  the  pure  parts 
of  the  Romish  faith,  I  believe  has  a  long  life  yet 
before  it  in  a  reformed  shape  in  the  Latin  world. 

What  are  the  prospects  of  reformed  Romanism,  as 
you  look  on  it  from  the  City  of  the  Seven  Hills  ? 

In  1191  Celestine  III.  made  the  Emperor  Henry 

VI.  kneel  down  before  him,  and  then  kicked  his 
crown  off  his  head,  in  order  to  show  the  Pope's  pre- 
rogative of  making  and  unmaking  kings.     Gregory 

VII.  obliged  Henry  IV.,  Emperor  of  Germany,  to 
stand  three  days  in  the  depth  of-  winter,  barefooted, 
at  the  gate  of  the  Castle  of  Canossa,  to  implore  his 
pardon.  What  has  happened  since  those  days?  Bis- 
marck tells  the  German  Parliament  that  neither  he 
nor  his  nation  expects  to  go  to  Canossa.  Fifteen 
thousand  dollars  from  poor  shop-girls  in  Great  Brit- 
ain were  only  a  few  years  ago  presented  to  the  Pope 
by  Lady  Herbert,  of  England,  and  he  seems  to  have 
needed  the  gift.  The  states  of  the  Church,  after 
a  thousand  years  of  dark  preeminence,  have  dis- 
appeared from  the  map  of  Italy.  The  unofficial 
secretaries  of  legation,  kept  at  the  Papal  Court  by 
several  nations,  have  been  withdrawn.  The  legation 
from  England,  in  18T4,  ceased  to  have  any  official 

13 


194  OCCIDENT. 

home  at  tlie  Vatican,  and  even  France  is  now  in- 
clined not  to  send  any  representative  to  the  Court 
of  St.  Peter.  The  fact  cannot  be  concealed  even 
from  Romanists,  that  the  temporal  power  of  the  Pa- 
pacy has  passed  away  in  our  time.  The  alphabet- 
ical guide  to  the  Protestant  churches  in  Italy  says 
there  are  138  organized  Protestant  churches,  besides 
assemblies  where  service  is  conducted  in  English, 
French,  and  German.  There  are  among  the  Wal- 
denses  15,000  communicants,  and  from  8,000  to 
10,000  more  in  the  Italian  Protestant  churches. 

At  the  time  of  the  Armada  —  that  is,  in  1588  — 
Spain  alone  had  forty-three  millions  of  people.  Eng- 
land, Wales,  and  Scotland  numbered  only  about  four 
millions,  or  fewer  than  London  itself  contains  to- 
day. Now,  Spain  has  only  sixteen  millions,  while 
Great  Britain  has  thirty-six,  with  colonial  subjects 
swelling  the  number  to  more  than  three  hundred 
millions.  The  wealth  of  Great  Britain  has  increased 
a  hundred-fold,  while  Spain  has  become  impover- 
ished. In  France  there  are  more  than  half  a  mill- 
ion Protestants,  with  a  thousand  Protestant  pastors, 
more  than  1,200  Protestant  schools,  and  thirty  Pro- 
testant religious  journals.  In  Switzerland  Roman- 
ism had  once  all,  and  now  has  only  two-fifths  of 
the  population.  In  Bavaria  the  Protestants  number 
nearly  a  third  of  the  population.  In  Belgium  alone 
does  Romanism  show  vigor. 

It  has  been  my  fortune  to  recite  these  facts  in  a 
public  lecture  almost  under  the  shadow  of  the  Vati- 
can, and  I  am  speaking  at  this  moment  from  notes 
used  in  Rome.     In  1851  the  Roman  Catholics  were 


ADVANCED   THOUGHT   IN   ITALY   AND    GREECE.      195 

25  per  cent,  of  the  wliole  population  of  England  and 
AVales  and  Ireland ;  in  1871,  or  twenty  years  later, 
they  were  only  19  per  cent.  Nevertheless,  the  Pope 
has  recently  referred  to  England  as  a  field  of  victory 
for  Romanism.  The  last  edition  of  the  "Encyclo- 
pedia Britannica  "  says  that  Catholics  in  England  and 
Wales,  according  to  the  census  of  1877,  were  barely 
one  million.  Roman  Catholic  churches  and  chapels 
increased  in  England,  Scotland,  and  Wales  from  647, 
in  1850,  to  1,543,  in  1880  ;  but  Protestant  churches 
have  increased  more,  relatively,  and  there  is  now  a 
less  percentage  of  Romanists  in  the  British  popula- 
tion than  at  the  beginning  of  the  century.  Roman 
Catholicism  has  not  been  progressive  in  England  for 
a  quarter  of  a  century.  Until  within  about  fifty 
years  all  South  America  was  Roman  Catholic ;  but 
now  some  twenty  Protestant  missionary  societies  are 
at  work  there.  Mexico  once  had  the  richest  Roman 
Catholic  establishment  in  the  world  ;  but  Protestant- 
ism is  making  great  inroads  upon  its  chief  cities.  In 
1800  the  Roman  Catholics  were  0.02  of  the  whole 
population  of  the  United  States,  now  they  are  12.68. 
The  Evangelical  population  of  the  United  States  in 
1800  was  24  per  cent,  of  the  whole  population ;  now 
it  is  estimated  at  70  per  cent.  In  1800  there  was  in 
the  United  States  one  Evangelical  Protestant  com- 
municant for  every  fifteen  of  the  population  ;  now 
there  is  one  in  five. 

What  of  Count  Campello  ?  It  was  my  fortune  to 
meet  him  in  Rome,  and  to  study  his  career  care- 
fully through  his  own  eyes,  as  well  as  those  of  both 
his  friends  and  opponents.     He  is  one  of  the  signs 


196  OCCIDENT. 

of  the  times  as  to  the  probable  future  of  Romanism 
in  Italy ;  a  devout,  brave,  and  able  man ;  a  scholar, 
who  drifted  out  of  Romanism  because  he  could  not 
drift  out  of  honesty.  He  has  endeavored,  but  with 
little  success,  thus  far,  to  establish  a  journal  of  his 
own,  in  which  he  does  not  advocate  all  our  various 
jarring  sects  of  Protestantism.  He  is  very  careful 
not  to  bring  forward  fifty-five  religions  in  the  place 
of  one.  But  he  stands  upon  the  general  principles 
of  Protestantism,  and  advocates  such  a  religion  as 
will  at  once  reach  the  heart  of  the  people  of  Italy 
and  not  offend  the  powers  of  the  state.  He  is  not 
cringing  in  his  attitude  before  the  civil  authorities, 
neither  does  he  take  the  position  of  a  craven  syco- 
phant before  popular  ignorance.  He  attacks  Vati- 
canism boldly,  he  opposes  infidelity  vigorously;  in 
short,  he  is  doing  admirable  Protestant  work  in  the 
pulpit  and  on  the  platform  and  in  the  press.  The  day 
is  coming  when  he,  and  men  with  purposes  like  his, 
are  likely  to  liave  man}"  followers  on  the  Seven  Hills. 
You  stand  in  Rome  and  look  abroad  over  the  do- 
minions of  the  Pope  in  the  world,  and  can  hardly 
fail  to  be  made  cheerful  by  many  a  prospect  of  re- 
form ;  not  near  at  hand,  perhaps,  but  inevitable  at 
last.  The  temporal  power  of  the  Pope  has  been 
taken  from  him,  once  for  all.  Say  what  you  please 
about  the  possibility  of  its  being  finally  brought 
back,  it  appears  to  me  that  the  hour  has  sounded 
when  all  serious  Romanists  themselves  should  give 
up  this  hope.  Transfer  the  seat  of  the  Papacy  from 
Europe  to  this  country,  if  you  please.  I  should  re- 
joice in  such  transf erral ;  because,  once  out  of  Rome, 


ADVANCED   THOUGHT   IN   ITALY   AND   GREECE.     197 

the  Papacy  will  not  be  itself.  A  certain  historic  and 
ecclesiastical  glamour  will  be  rubbed  off  it  the  mo- 
ment you  put  it  into  another  country.  Bring  it  to 
New  York,  and  you  will  be  bringing  a  gaudy  butter- 
fly into  the  frosts  of  the  latest  Autumn.  We  are 
very  rude  toward  gilded  things  in  this  country.  We 
have  many  kinds  of  sense  ;  but  very  little  historic 
sense  or  ecclesiastical  sense.  The  Pope  in  New  York 
would  most  assuredly  be  a  humming-bird  in  March. 
What  am  I  to  say  of  Protestantism  at  large  in 
Italy  ?  What  are  the  present  duties  of  Protestant- 
ism on  the  Seven  Hills  of  Rome  ?  What  measures 
for  the  advance  of  Protestantism  in  Italy  ought  to 
be  supported  by  Protestants  elsewhere  ?  Among 
particular  measures  for  the  advance  of  Protestantism 
in  Italy  these  are  very  specially  important  at  the 
present  time  :  — 

1.  Support  of  the  new  Italian  national  system  of 
education  —  especially  of  the  institutions  equivalent 
to  our  common  schools  and  high  schools. 

2.  Churches  of  aggressive  piety. 

3.  Lectureships  in  Protestant  apologetics. 

4.  Scientific  theological  training  of  preachers. 

5.  Evangelical  services. 

6.  All  methods  for  the  religious  culture  of  the 
young. 

7.  Temporary  financial  assistance  to  converts  in 
need  of  employment  after  ceasing  to  be  Roman' 
ists. 

8.  Purity  of  life  in  the  Evangelical  ministry. 

9.  Unity  among  Evangelical  sects. 

10.  Exposure  of  the  errors  of  the  Papacy,  as  illus- 


198  OCCIDENT. 

trated  in  the  history  of  indulgences,  inquisitions, 
Mariolatry,  monasteries,  the  denial  of  the  Bible  to 
the  people,  the  political  pretensions  of  the  hierarchy, 
and  its  opposition  to  the  education  of  the  people. 

Many  a  cab-driver  in  Paris  was  once  a  priest.  It 
is  very  difficult  to  obtain  in  Paris  reputable  employ- 
ment at  the  present  hour  for  a  priest  who  has  aban- 
doned Romanism.  It  is  almost  impossible  to  do  this 
in  the  Sacred  City  of  the  Tiber.  I  found  Protestant 
ministers  and  missionaries  substantially  unanimous, 
although  not  quite  so,  in  the  opinion  that  financial 
assistance  should  be  given  to  such  converts  ;  not  per- 
manently, but  from  time  to  time,  according  to  the 
wisdom  of  those  who  study  the  circumstances  in  de- 
tail in  each  case.  It  is  really  a  question  of  starva- 
tion that  faces  many  a  man  who  leaves  Romanism  in 
Italy.  Many  a  poor  priest  will  not  be  received  as  a 
teacher,  or  employed  in  any  position  of  high  trust,  if 
it  is  known  that  he  has  become  a  reprobate  to  Ro- 
manism. Perhaps  very  little  ought  to  be  said  upon 
this  point,  after  all.  Nevertheless,  so  does  Rome 
differ  from  London,  so  does  Paris  differ  from  Boston, 
that  temporary  assistance  of  this  sort  sometimes 
makes  the  difference  between  courage  and  a  craven 
attitude  in  one  who  leaves  Romanism.  Unless  a 
man  can  obtain  his  living,  it  is  hard  to  induce  him 
to  be  thoroughly  aggressive  in  his  opposition  to  the 
faith  he  abandons  in  Italy.  In  twenty-five  years  no 
aid  of  the  kind  here  suggested  will  be  needed. 

What  is  Italy  to  the  world  ?  you  ask.  What  is 
she  to-day  to  the  Romish  world  ?  Queen  of  Romish 
nations,  head   of   all  great  Romish  forces   on  this 


ADVANCED   THOUGHT  IN  ITALY  AND   GREECE.     199 

planet.  Conquer  Italy  for  Protestantism  and  ad- 
vanced ciyilization  ;  conquer  that  land  of  beauty  and 
of  song  ;  conquer  that  population  of  devout  religious 
instincts  and  of  marvellous  artistic  perceptions  ;  con- 
quer that  proud  people  of  ancient  blood,  not  yet  for- 
getful of  its  lineage,  and  you  conquer  Romanism 
throughout  the  planet. 

What  was  Italy  to  the  world?  The  most  ad- 
vanced thought  of  Italy  must  be  learned  from  the 
clustered  constellations  of  culture  in  the  deep  sky  of 
her  classical  ages.  The  azure  canopy  in  which  Hor- 
ace and  Virgil,  Cicero  and  Csesar  blaze  as  fixed  stars 
is  yet  spread  over  all  educated  nations.  Among  the 
ruins  of  the  Forum  and  the  Palatine  Hill,  and  along 
the  Appian  Way  and  in  the  Colosseum  and  the  Cata- 
combs, the  air  is  full  of  ghosts,  with  whom  you 
converse  of  what  was  and  is  and  is  to  be.  ''  Torn 
asunder,"  says  Richter,  "  are  the  gigantic  spokes  of 
the  wheel  which  once  the  very  stream  of  the  ages 
drove."  Their  pathetic  fragments  are  more  glorious 
than  all  that  has  taken  their  place. 

No  marbles  in  Italy  are  more  worthy  of  study 
than  the  portrait  busts  from  the  classical  ages.  Un- 
til the  faces  of  the  emperors  and  philosophers  and 
orators  and  poets  have  not  only  given  up  their  secrets 
as  pieces  of  physiognomy,  but  have  been  set  in  their 
proper  relations  to  history  and  biography,  so  that  a 
restoration  of  the  spiritual  atmospheres  of  ancient 
Rome  becomes  possible  to  the  student  of  her  ruins, 
it  can  hardly  be  said  that  he  has  appreciated  the 
opportunities  of  a  visitor  at  the  Capitoline  Museum 
and  the  Vatican.     A  general  remark  on  the  ancient 


200  OCCIDENT. 

portrait  busts  is,  that  the  heads  and  faces  are 
stronger  than  those  of  the  present  Italian  public 
men,  though  in  general  more  nearly  of  the  same 
types  of  form  than  one  would  suppose  by  studying 
idealized  modern  illustrations  of  the  Roman  counte- 
nances in  the  Augustan  age.  Often  weak,  some- 
times exceedingly  cruel,  very  frequently  coarse  and 
oleaginous  in  fibre,  the  classical  faces  are  yet  less 
melted  and  inwardly  effeminate  than  the  average 
types  of  the  Italy  of  the  present  day.  In  general, 
large  remnants  of  health  of  soul  and  of  vigor  of 
constitution  remain  in  the  earlier  line  of  emperors. 
These  founders  of  imperial  power  have  a  more  force- 
ful quantity  and  quality  of  being  than  can  be  attrib- 
uted to  the  average  of  the  later  line. 

Curiously  one  notices,  among  the  antique  busts 
of  the  Capitoline  Museum,  in  Julius  Coesar^  dignity, 
magnanimity,  and  force ;  the  strong  cheek  -  bones, 
forehead,  nose,  and  chin  ;  the  hollow  cheeks ;  the  two 
horizontal  and  two  vertical  wrinkles  in  the  high  and 
deep  but  not  pugnaciously  thick  forehead :  in  -4?/- 
gustus,  imperiousness  and  intensity,  but  a  certain 
lack  of  strength  in  the  lower  face  as  compared  with 
Julius  Caesar ;  the  pronouncedly  knit  brows,  the 
cold,  imperious  lips :  in  Caligula,  a  lawless  will,  a 
cruel  arrogance,  a  whimsical,  general  disposition,  a 
weak  lower  face ;  the  mouth,  eyes,  and  brows  those 
of  a  person  of  inferior  ability,  accustomed  to  un- 
limited power :  in  Claudius,  weakness  of  character, 
considerable  force  of  intellect,  the  absence  of  pre- 
dominant, cruel  dispositions ;  the  rather  thin  and 
flabby  lower  face,  as  of  a  man  whom  women  might 


ADVANCED   THOUGHT  IN  ITALY  AND  GREECE.      201 

rule  :  in  Messalina^  treachery,  sensuality,  and  daring ; 
the  repulsively  sensual  thickening  of  the  lower  face, 
in  spite  of  the  general  symmetry  of  the  features  and 
the  fineness  of  fibre  :  in  Agrippina^  ability,  perfidy, 
ambition,  with  a  capacity  for  cruelty  in  the  service 
of  these  predominant  traits,  and  for  sensuality  which 
would  know  no  check  except  from  selfishness;  the 
forehead,  cheek-bones,  and  chin  strong  for  a  woman's 
face,  and  yet  the  whole  countenance  quite  symmetri- 
cal and  perhaps  in  youth  outwardly,  though  never 
inwardly,  beautiful :  in  Nero^  at  eighteen  or  twenty 
years  of  age,  brutal  coarseness,  perfidy,  and  the  puffy 
cheeks  of  physical  indulgence ;  in  Nero,  later  in  his 
life,  the  withered  lower  face  contrasting  strangely 
with  the  dewlap  in  the  chin  and  the  thick  neck; 
then  the  wrinkled  forehead,  the  scornful  and  lawless 
lips,  and  yet  the  fibre  of  the  man's  brain  and  face 
not  so  bad  as  the  form  of  both  :  in  Poppea  iSabma, 
outward  beauty,  sensuality,  and  ambition  :  in  Titus, 
to  pass  by  the  coarse  and  cruel  face  of  Vespasian,  a 
certain  elevation  and  worthiness  both  of  mind  and 
character,  triumphing  over  some  tendency  to  sen- 
suality, but  having  very  little  natural  cruelty  to 
contend  with:  in  Traja7i^  a.  look  of  justice  and  pen- 
etration, not  met  with  since  Caesar's  face  ;  an  om- 
nipresent careworn  expression,  as  if  derived  from 
honorable  fulfilment  of  the  duties  of  ruling;  the 
length  of  the  head  from  the  ear  to  the  space  between 
the  brows ;  the  strong  cheek  and  chin  ;  the  chief 
fault,  the  fiatness  of  the  upper  brain  at  its  front :  in 
Hadrian,  a  very  complete  equipment  of  all  the  fac- 
ulties, yet  a  certain  tendency  to  secretly  cherished 


202  OCCIDENT. 

sensualities  and  cruelties,  and  a  lack  of  elevation, 
except  of  the  kind  which  arises  from  good  taste  :  in 
Marcus  Aurelius,  as  a  youth,  the  best  nature  among 
the  emperors,  generosity,  ingenuousness,  and  eleva- 
tion of  soul ;  the  symmetrical,  open  and  sweet,  but 
not  soft  face ;  its  extreme  contrast  with  Caracalla,  or 
Nero,  or  Faustina,  whose  repulsively  thickened,  sen- 
sual cheeks,  neck,  and  chin  are  next  to  it ;  in  Marcus 
Aurelius,  as  a  man,  the  same  traits  matured,  with  a 
careworn  look  and  a  little  more  suspicion,  but  with 
no  treachery  or  sensuality  mingled  with  them. 

In  the  Hall  of  the  Philosophers,  a  thousand 
thoughts  fill  the  soul  as  one  notices  in  Socrates  the 
colossal  forehead  and  satyr-like  nose ;  the  powerful, 
shrewd,  and  wholly  honest  eyes,  contrasted  with  the 
democratic  carelessness  of  the  beard  and  strong 
lower  face  ;  a  gigantic  nature,  symmetrical  in  every 
part,  except  an  ugliest  possible  pug-nose,  —  uglier  yet 
in  the  bust  at  Villa  Albani  where  the  power  of  the 
forehead  is  not  quite  as  great  as  here :  in  Demosthenes, 
the  six  wrinkles  in  the  brows ;  the  whole  face  and 
head  exceedingly  like  that  of  the  Vatican  statue, 
but  possibly  expressing  even  greater  intensity  and 
concentration  of  intellect  and  will,  and  breathing  in- 
genuousness everywhere  through  the  terrible  mental 
and  moral  penetration :  in  u^schines,  comparative  in- 
dolence, a  capacity  for  dishonesty,  and  yet  much  sym- 
metry and  force  of  brain;  the  unmistakable  proofs 
that  he  was  neither  as  earnest,  nor  as  honest,  nor  as 
intense,  nor  as  penetrating  as  Demosthenes,  and  yet 
that  his  intellectual  ability  was  very  considerably 
noteworthy:  in  Euripides,  a  Shakespearian  height 


ADVANCED    THOtJGHT   IN   ITALY   AND    GREECE.      203 

of  the  coronal  region  of  the  brain,  and  an  equally- 
Shakespearian  fulness  and  symmetry  of  the  whole 
forehead.  The  Homers  here,  although  undoubtedly 
not  portraits,  are  interesting  as  creations  of  ancient 
art,  for  the  faces  resemble  each  other  closely  and 
have  wonderful  power  and  sensitiveness.  In  two  of 
the  busts,  the  height  of  the  coronal  region,  especially 
of  that  above  the  ears,  is  so  great  as  to  look  almost 
unnatural.  Homer's  head  has  three  stories,  and  in 
one  bust  a  dome  above  the  third  story.  The  delicate 
lines  about  the  admirably  formed  brows  and  eyes 
betray  an  almost  insane  sensitiveness.  This  lofty, 
fine,  elastic  brain  would  be  both  telescopic  and  mi- 
croscopic ;  it  is  hardly  too  much  to  say  that  it  is 
worthy  to  be  Homer's.  Extreme  fulness  of  natural 
equipment,  conjoined  with  considerable  tendency  to 
severity,  appears  in  Scipio  Africanus.  The  bust 
called  by  the  critics  Aristotle  unites  masculine  and 
feminine  traits  most  wonderfully  ;  the  chin,  cheek- 
bones jaws,  brows,  and  nose  are  of  staunch  make, 
but  the  lips  taken  alone  might  be  those  of  a  sen- 
sitive woman.  The  great  eye  orbits,  the  vivacious 
expression,  the  slight  elevation  of  the  chin  and  open- 
ing of  the  lips  make  the  general  impression  the  ob- 
server receives  from  this  bust  more  vivid  than  that 
from  any  other  in  the  room,  excepting  Homer's. 

Doubtless  the  Demosthenes  of  the  Vatican  is  a 
portrait,  not  only  of  the  countenance  of  the  greatest 
orator  of  the  world,  but  of  his  whole  form  and  most 
characteristic  action  in  speaking.  It  is  at  least  safe 
to  say  that  this  is  the  confirmed  opinion  of  sculptors 
who  know  how  accurately   ancient  art,  in  its  por- 


204  OCCIDENT. 

trait  statues,  reproduced  the  whole  man.  The  figure 
speaks  incisively  to  the  conscience.  The  face  is  pre- 
cisely that  which  the  orations  of  Demosthenes  lead 
the  student  of  them  to  expect.  It  is  a  concentration 
of  earnestness,  honesty,  elevation  of  soul,  force  of 
will,  and  terribly  penetrating,  practical  judgment. 
The  great  earnestness  of  the  countenance  strikes  one 
from  all  points  ;  but  perhaps  best  from  a  view 
slightly  on  the  right  of  the  front,  where  the  sharp 
lines  of  thought  and  will  and  conscientiousness  show 
themselves  at  every  angle  of  forehead,  eyebrows, 
cheeks,  and  lips.  Not  a  suspicion  of  disingenuous- 
ness,  or  of  the  capacity  for  it,  is  in  the  face.  This 
is  its  greatest  power.  Demosthenes,  as  represented 
by  the  Vatican  statue,  is  not  only  transcendently 
able,  earnest,  and  honest,  but  he  is  also  unconscious 
that  he  is  either.  He  gives  to  the  observer  the 
irresistible  impression  that  in  no  possible  circum- 
stances would  the  judgment  or  the  conscience  of  the 
orator  be  found  asleep  or  at  fault.  He  is  genuine, 
and  terribly  determined  that  his  hearers  shall  be. 
The  face  cannot  be  intelligently  contemplated  with- 
out an  emotion  of  trust,  giving  the  auditor  a  sense 
of  relief  and  a  readiness  for  submission,  not  to  De- 
mosthenes, for  he  does  not  assert  himself  at  all,  but 
to  the  truth,  which  he  not  only  possesses,  but  by 
which  he  is  plainly  possessed.  It  is  remarkable  that 
the  original  position  of  the  hands  should  have  been 
a  most  quiescent  one  ;  although  even  when  folded, 
as  they  were,  they  must  have  been  nervously  alive, 
as  are  every  tliread  and  fibre  of  the  form  and  face. 
If  the  countenance  of  Demosthenes  had  earnest- 


ADVANCED   THOUGHT   IN   ITALY   AND   GREECE.     205 

ness  like  a  tliunderbolt  when  liis  hands  were  folded, 
what  may  it  not  have  had  in  his  more  animated  ges- 
ture ?  The  fulness  and  the  reserve  of  power  are  both 
expressed  in  the  posture  the  sculptor  has  chosen ; 
and  doubtless  both  were  as  often  expressed  together 
by  his  physical  action  as  they  are  by  the  rhetor- 
ical structure  of  his  speeches.  This  physical  frame  is 
as  closely  knit  as  the  Philippics.  The  attitude  and 
atmosphere  are  as  thoroughly  genuine  at  all  points 
as  those  of  the  Oration  on  the  Crown.  The  texture 
of  this  high,  intense,  stern,  penetrating,  supremely 
earnest  and  practical  soul  is  precisely  the  same  with 
the  texture  of  that  argument  and  appeal.  It  is 
worth  noticing  that  the  head  is  high  and  admirably 
symmetrical ;  the  forehead  full  at  the  top  and  up- 
per angles,  as  well  as  along  the  intense  brows  ;  the 
breadth  of  it  not  inferior,  and  yet  not  as  remark- 
able as  its  height  and  its  depth  backward  toward 
the  ears.  The  lower  forehead  is  very  strong  and  of 
the  type  supposed  to  indicate  practical  good  judg- 
ment ;  the  nose  of  the  best  form ;  the  cheeks  ner- 
vous and  slightly  thinned  by  thought.  The  mouth, 
as  far  as  the  upper  and  shortly  cut  lower  beard  allows 
it  to  be  seen,  is  severe  and  yet  flexible  and  finely 
cut.  There  are  two  wrinkles  crossing  the  forehead 
horizontally.  Many  busts  of  Demosthenes  repre- 
sent the  forehead  with  vertical  furrows.  The  ejes 
are  deeply  set,  very  serious,  firm,  and  intense,  but 
not  large.  Seen  from  a  three  quarters  view,  there 
are  in  the  head  admirable  height  and  symmetry, 
and  in  the  face  the  most  noble  earnestness,  force,  and 
incisiveness.     The  dress  is  not  as  simple  as  it  ap- 


206  OCCIDENT. 

pears  at  first  sight.  The  toga,  the  only  garment 
visible,  has  two  small  tassels  at  the  tips  of  its  cape, 
and  the  sandals  are  fastened  with  ties  elaborately 
curved  over  the  bridge  of  the  foot.  The  right 
shoulder,  and  nearly  the  whole  of  the  left,  and  quite 
the  whole  of  the  right  arm,  are  bare.  The  toga 
falls  to  the  region  of  the  ankles.  The  form  has,  of 
course,  no  superfluous  weight.  The  temperament  is 
intensely  nervous ;  but  the  contour  of  shoulders  and 
muscles  is  gracefully  masculine.  The  neck  is  neither 
large  nor  small,  but  its  length  corresponds  well  with 
the  height  of  the  head  and  of  the  whole  stature. 
jEschines  should  be  set  in  contrast  with  the  Vatican 
Demosthenes.  The  rival  orator,  according  to  his 
marble  portraits,  had  a  large  and  symmetrical  head, 
but  lacked  vastly  both  intensity  and  honesty.  All 
the  grand,  manly,  and  penetrating  traits  are  instinc- 
tively quickened  in  the  sympathetic  observer  of  the 
best  marble  representations  of  Demosthenes.  They 
are  relaxed  in  presence  of  the  statues  of  ^schines. 

In  the  Palace  of  the  Conservator  on  the  Capitoline 
stands  a  full  length  statue  of  Julius  Csesar,  which, 
as  many  critics  affirm,  is  the  most  complete  and  au- 
thentic representation  of  him  that  exists  in  the  world. 
The  brain  is  massively  full  in  every  direction  ex- 
cept height.  The  length  of  the  head  from  the  ear 
to  the  centre  of  the  eyebrows  is  very  great.  Car- 
lyle  calls  this  the  surest  sign  of  talent.  The  length 
from  the  ear  to  the  upper  comers  of  the  forehead 
is  great.  Probably,  however,  the  intellectual  region 
of  the  brain  is  not  as  massive  as  that  of  Socrates ; 
and  yet  the  breadth  of  the  forehead,  as  seen  from  the 


ADVANCED    THOUGHT   IN   ITALY   AND   GREECE.     207 

front,  is  fully  equal  to  tliat  of  the  Stagyrite,  whose 
bow,  as  Grote  says,  no  man,  since  the  hemlock  did 
its  work,  has  been  found  strong  enough  to  bend. 
The  head  is  far  from  being  as  high  as  that  of  Soc- 
rates or  Plato,  Homer,  Euripides,  or  Shakespeare. 
The  lips  are  finely  cut  and  exceedingly  sensitive, 
and  the  upper  one  almost  poetic,  altliough  they  are 
firm  enough  to  be  those  of  a  statesman  and  general. 
The  eyes  are  large,  very  penetrating,  forceful,  com- 
manding, and  by  possibility  imperious,  though  never 
cruel  or  malicious.  They  are  full  of  dignity,  and 
of  a  grave  Roman  kind  of  self-respect  and  magna- 
nimity. Two  long,  horizontal  furrows  in  the  middle 
of  the  forehead,  the  somewhat  hollowed  cheeks,  and 
the  great  thoughtfulness  of  the  general  look  give  an 
impression  to  the  observer  that  Caesar  is  careworn, 
but  by  no  means  that  he  is  not  at  peace  with  him- 
self and  equal  to  any  emergency.  The  jaws  are 
strong,  and  yet  the  cheeks  are  neither  coarse  nor 
preponderatingly  heavy  as  parts  of  the  countenance. 
The  neck  is  not  thick  and  short,  as  in  Nero  ;  it  is 
large,  but  also  long.  The  shoulders  and  bust  are 
massive  without  being  too  sturdy  for  the  general 
symmetry  of  the  form. 

In  a  mild  climate,  hardly  any  better  style  of  dress 
could  be  invented  than  the  Capitoline  Caesar  wears. 
Here  are  what  might  be  called,  in  modern  phraseol- 
ogy, sandals,  skirt,  a  breast-plate,  waistcoat,  armlets, 
and  a  shawl,  and  nothing  more  in  sight.  The  knees 
and  lower  arms,  as  is  usual  with  the  statues  of  Roman 
emperors,  are  as  naked  as  the  knees  of  Scotch  High- 
landers.     There  is  a  sa&ii  tied  with  two  carefully 


208  OCCIDENT. 

arranged  bows  about  the  waist.  On  the  lower  part 
of  the  tunic  or  breast-plate  are  two  griffin-like  forms 
sculptured  in  relief  ;  the  lower  edges  of  this  garment 
are  skirted  by  scollops  containing  each  the  head  of 
a  lion,  or  man,  or  ram,  or  goat.  The  sandals  are 
attached  to  the  ankles  by  a  series  of  straps,  them- 
selves tied  in  knots,  with  flowing  ends,  about  leather 
or  cloth  wraps  for  the  ankles.  The  right  hand 
holds  a  small  globe  or  ball,  and  hangs  by  the  side  ; 
the  left  is  raised  and  the  fingers  close  slightly  to- 
ward the  palm.  Csesar,  as  represented  in  the  famous 
bust  of  the  Naples  Museum,  and  in  the  full  length 
statue  of  the  Palace  of  the  Conservator  at  Rome, 
fits  his  character  in  history,  and  the  demands  the 
imagination  and  judgment  naturally  make  in  ad- 
vance as  to  what  his  countenance  should  be.  I 
prefer  the  Naples  bust  to  all  others  of  Caesar,  as  I 
do  the  full  length  statue  at  Rome  to  every  other  rep- 
resentation of  him  there ;  but  the  two  portraits  are 
so  exceedingly  alike  that  if  the  one  be  admitted,  as 
the  Naples  bust  is,  to  be  an  authoritative  likeness, 
the  other  must  be.  Seen  from  the  right  side  of  the 
statue,  the  resemblance  is  most  striking,  as  the  left 
side  at  Rome  shows  only  the  injured  right  side  of 
the  face.  What  breadth  of  forehead  and  fulness  of 
the  whole  cerebral  might  in  the  Naples  bust !  What 
fineness,  force,  and  self-respect  in  the  lips;  what 
magnanimity  and  determination  and  sagacity  in  the 
forehead,  eyes,  and  general  atmosphere  of  the  coun- 
tenance. It  is  to  be  noticed,  however,  that  the  bust 
does  not  possess  the  Socratic  or  Platonic  or  Shake- 
spearian  height   of   the   c6ronal  region ;  yet   in   no 


ADVANCED   THOUGHT   IN   ITALY   AND   GREECE.     209 

other  respect  is  the  organization  lacking  in  fahiess 
of  equipment.  The  two  vertical  and  the  two  hori- 
zontal furrows  in  tlie  forehead,  the  hollowed  cheeks, 
and  the  strong  expression  of  care  do  not  destroy  the 
feeling  the  observer  has  that  this  man  is  substan- 
tially at  peace  with  himself,  and  would  be  so  in  al- 
most any  possible  emergency.  It  is  not  difficult  to 
see  that  he  could  be  general  and  statesman  easily, 
and  orator  besides,  but  not  a  seer,  or  poet,  or  prophet. 

Hadrian  appears  with  more  fine  work  in  his  like- 
ness at  Naples  than  at  Rome,  but,  as  at  Rome,  he 
looks  capable  of  secret  cruelties  and  sensualities,  al- 
though wonderfully  gifted  with  intellectual,  artistic, 
and  governing  power.  The  organization  is  fine  ;  the 
lips  thin  and  sensitive,  without  a  trace  of  weakness. 
The  observer  is  convinced  that  Hadrian  could  easily 
have  travelled  on  foot  under  sun  and  rain,  as  he  did, 
from  Britannia  to  Asia  Minor,  and  thence  to  Spain, 
and  at  the  same  time  that  he  might  have  been  his 
own  architect  and  the  patron  of  all  men  of  letters. 
But  the  face  indicates,  too,  how  Sabina,  his  wife, 
may  have  had  reason  for  putting  herself  to  death. 

Pericles  at  Naples,  in  his  helmet,  resembles  so  ex- 
ceedingly the  Pericles  of  the  Vatican,  that  one  nat- 
urally trusts  the  portrait.  Gracefulness,  power,  and 
self-respect  flood  the  face  ;  the  equipment  is  that  of 
statesman,  poet,  and  philosopher,  though  hardly  that 
of  the  general.  Aspasia  at  Rome,  in  the  Vatican, 
has  a  round,  full  head,  somewhat  flat  in  the  coronal 
region,  but  in  general  enough  like  that  of  Pericles  to 
have  made  her  his  companion  by  similarity  of  char- 
acter, and  not  merely  because  she  was  a  supplement 

14 


210  OCCIDENT. 

or  complement  of  liis  nature.  It  would  be  hard  in- 
deed to  say  what  Pericles  needed  as  a  complement  of 
his  natural  endowments,  he  is  so  fully  and  symmet- 
rically equipped.  A  certain  Caesarian  sternness  and 
capacity  for  success  on  the  battle-field  is  almost  all 
he  lacks. 

Euripides  in  the  Naples  bust  moves  me  exceed- 
ingly by  the  prophetic  height  of  the  head,  the  depth 
of  the  forehead,  and  the  terribly  penetrating  and 
serious  eyes.  He  looks  upon  life  from  a  vast  height 
and  with  a  mind  that  is  at  once  telescopic  and  mi- 
croscopic. 

Herodotus  and  Thucydides  in  the  busts  at  Naples 
the  critics  call  very  authoritative  likenesses.  Cer- 
tainly their  contrasts  are  of  extreme  interest,  espe- 
cially that  of  the  genial  thoughtfulness  of  the  He- 
rodotus with  the  severer,  finer,  and  perhaps  more 
thoughtful,  but  less  cheerful  face  of  Thucydides. 

Antoninus  Pius  has  almost  a  modern  face,  so 
thoroughly  do  better  traits  of  character  than  the 
Roman  emperors  generally  possessed  shine  out  from 
it.  The  Naples  bust,  too,  is  better  finished  than  any 
other  I  have  met  of  this  ruler,  who  made  Roman 
history  almost  a  blank  from  138  to  161,  by  causing 
a  suspension  of  war,  violence,  and  crime. 

Homer  at  Naples  is  represented  as  at  all  points 
agreeing  wdth  the  type  seen  in  the  three  Capitoline 
busts ;  but  the  combination  of  sensitiveness,  aspira- 
tion, and  devouring  spiritual  energy,  on  the  one  hand, 
with  entire  inward  peace,  on  the  other,  is,  perha|)s, 
more  successfully  represented  in  the  expression  of 
the  Naples  bust  than  in  that  of  either  of  the  others. 


ADVANCED  THOUGHT  IN   ITALY  AND   GREECE.     211 

I  never  weary  of  studying  the  sublime  blind  eyes, 
the  wonderfully  eloquent  cheeks  and  lips,  and  the 
sad  but  nowhere  weak  furrows  of  forehead  and  face. 
He  was  a  kind  of  Olympian  himself,  capable  of  act- 
ing Achilles'  part,  and  that  of  Agamemnon  too,  as 
well  as  of  singing  them.  The  bold  fulness  of  the 
lower  part  of  the  forehead,  the  great  length  from 
nose  to  ear,  and  height  from  ear  over  to  ear  are 
very  noticeable.  The  head  is  as  high  as  Walter 
Scott's,  or  that  of  Euripides,  but  much  longer  than 
either  from  the  ears  forward. 

From  Naples,  while  Vesuvius  shows  its  fire  and 
fills  the  soft  air  with  strange  thunders,  you  sail 
away  with  Richter's  "  Titan  "  open  on  your  knee, 
past  Capri,  Sorrento,  Sicily,  and  the  hoarse,  black 
swirls  of  Scylla  and  Charybdis.  After  rough  toss- 
ing on  the  vexed  Mediterranean  near  Cape  Malea, 
your  ship  pauses  in  the  harbor  of  the  Piraeus.  Un- 
der the  most  marvellously  brilliant  midnight  stars, 
you  drive  to  Athens. 

Advanced  thought  in  Greece  must  be  learned  from 
the  ghosts  of  the  great  souls  of  her  antiquity,  and 
they  yet  fill  all  her  classic  air,  above  land  and  sea. 

In  1873  it  was  my  fortune  to  spend  a  whole  night 
alone  on  tlie  Acropolis  [see  Appendix]  ;  another 
night  alone  at  the  summit  of  Mount  Parnassus;  sev- 
eral days  at  Delphi ;  a  day  at  Marathon  ;  a  day  at 
Salamis;  a  night  on  the  Plain  of  Troy.  In  1881 
I  was  once  more  at  Athens,  and  everything  mod- 
ern there  had  changed  for  the  better.  It  is  pathetic 
to  find  Greece  at  last  opening  on  the  Acropolis  and 
in  the  heart  of    Athens  national    museums   for  the 


212  OCCIDENT. 

sacred  remnants  of  her  own  ancient  art,  wliicli  have 
been  pillaged  hitherto  for  the  enrichment  of  the  mu- 
seums of  all  Western  Europe.  Fifty  years  ago  not 
a  book  could  be  bought  at  Athens.  I  hold  in  my 
hand  at  this  moment  the  Year  Book  of  the  Univer- 
sity of  Athens,  printed  in  classical  Greek.  The  ex- 
amination papers  in  it  are  as  searching  as  any  ever 
issued  at  Harvard  or  Yale,  at  Cambridge  or  Oxford. 
I  counted  in  1881  thirteen  very  tall  factory  chimney- 
stacks  in  the  Piraeus,  not  one  of  which  was  there  at 
my  first  visit,  in  1873.  I  bought,  at  a  single  pause 
of  my  carriage  in  the  main  street  of  Athens^  a  col- 
lection of  a  dozen  newspapers  now  issued  in  that 
metropolis,  all  in  beautiful  Greek.  Hear  [shaking 
one  of  the  papers  before  the  audience]  the  latest 
rustle  of  Demostbeues  among  the  ages  !  In  Athens 
the  ancient  days  of  Greece  are  yet  your  chief  teach- 
ers. As  you  wander  through  the  olive  groves  of  the 
Cephissus  and  the  Ilissus,  and  hear  the  ^gean  wind 
among  the  columns  of  the  Temple  of  Jupiter,  and 
stand  again  on  the  Bema,  Mars  Hill,  and  the  Acrop- 
olis, 3'ou  renew  a  trance  of  historic  sympathy  from 
which  you  hope  never  to  wake. 

Two  letters,  actually  written  the  one  face  to  face 
with  the  precipices  of  Delphi  and  the  other  at  the 
summit  of  Mt.  Parnassus,  recall  a  few  of  the  high  ex- 
periences of  your  interviews  witli  Greek  history  and 
its  Ruler  and  with  Greek  Nature  and  its  Author. 

Delphi,  July  11. 

So  powerful  is  the  impression  which  this  Gorge  of 
Delphi  and  Mt.  Parnassus  towering  above  it  8,000 


ADVANCED  THOUGHT   IN  ITALY  AND   GREECE.     213 

feet  have  made  upon  me,  that  I  do  not  doubt  that 
the  wild  beasts  that  once  wandered  here  were,  in  a 
certain  sense,  religious.  No  wonder,  therefore,  that 
this  stern  and  sublime  scenery  should  have  caused 
the  Greeks  to  locate  here  the  most  revered  of  all 
their  oracles.  As  I  write  on  my  knee  in  the  crisp, 
clear,  Greek  morning  air,  I  look  into  that  magnifi- 
cent amphitheatre  at  the  southern  foot  of  Parnas- 
sus, where,  terrace  above  terrace,  Delplii  stood  at 
the  edge  of  precipices  almost  perpendicular  and 
nearly  2,000  feet  high.  The  Castalian  spring  sends 
out  its  crystalline,  murmurous  brook  from  the  roots 
of  the  giddy  mountain  walls.  In  1870  an  earth- 
quake destroyed  a  large  part  of  the  village,  of  wdiich 
the  remnants  are  yet  here,  and  choked  up  the  res- 
ervoir cut  in  the  rock  at  the  spring.  I  have  drunk 
of  the  water  at  the  most  celebrated  point  at  the 
eastern  side  of  the  ancient  Delphi,  where  the  unde- 
caying  fountain  leaps  out  from  the  reddish  gray 
cliffs.  I  have  spent  many  hours  among  the  few  and 
pathetic  ruins  left  of  the  temple  of  the  Oracle.  But 
the  grandeur  of  the  scenery  continues  to  make  upon 
me  to  the  last  an  impression  more  distinctly  relig- 
ious than  I  ever  received  from  mountains  or  chasms 
before.  The  historical  atmosphere  accounts  for  this 
in  part.  Probably,  also,  the  indescribable  magnifi- 
cence of  the  thunder  and  lightning  and  lashing 
showers  which  were  moving  over  Parnassus  and  ad- 
jacent heights  as  I  approached  Delphi,  yesterday, 
through  the  fat  olive  orchards  of  the  Crissean  plain, 
account  for  another  portion  of  the  peculiar  influence 
which  Delphi  exerts  upon  me. 


214  OCCIDENT. 

The  valleys  are  tropically  luxuriant  in  their 
growths  of  olives  wherever  living  streams  or  irriga- 
tion can  reach  the  thirsty  soil ;  but  the  mountain 
slopes  are  desolate.  Only  an  exceedingly  stunted 
shrubbery,  not  tall  enough  to  be  called  copse,  covers 
their  gray  sides.  A  very  uneven  sprinkling  of  green 
appears  on  their  sharply  outlined  spikes  and  bosses. 
Nevertheless,  the  Gorge  of  the  Pleistus  is  filled  with 
rich  vineyards.  The  olives  creep  more  than  half 
way  up  the  long  slope  of  the  thirt3^-seven  terraces  I 
can  count  between  the  bottom  of  the  valley  and  the 
Castalian  spring. 

The  air  is  alive  with  the  murmur  of  bees.  They 
feed  here,  as  at  Mount  Hymettus,  on  the  odorous 
wild  thyme.  The  modern  village  overflows  with  the 
sound  of  gushing  rills.  Yonder  stretches  the  green 
Crissean  plain  full  of  vineyards  and  olives  down  to 
the  very  shore  of  the  far  flashing  Corinthian  Gulf. 
Apollo's  Shrine  is  hushed  forever ;  but  the  Delphi 
precipices,  the  heights  of  Parnassus,  and  the  Cas- 
talian spring  are  a  perpetual  oracle. 

Summit  of  Parnassus,  July  13. 

God's  name,  if  any  man  who  is  sufficiently  thought- 
ful dares  speak  it,  seems  to  be  the  only  word  that 
should  be  uttered  on  such  mountain  tops  as  this  of 
Parnassus. 

I  came  here  at  5.15  yesterday  afternoon,  and  am 
writing  now  at  5.15  on  the  following  morning,  hav- 
ing passed  the  whole  night  alone  on  this  summit, 
8,066  feet  above  the  sea. 

If   the  cramped   handwriting  shows  that  I  am  a 


ADVANCED   THOUGHT   IN"   ITALY   AND   GREECE.      215 

little  chilled,  it  proves,  nevertheless,  that  I  am  not 
shivering ;  and  the  ink  is  certainly  not  below  the 
freezing  point.  My  thermometer  has  fallen  at  no 
time  below  38°.  With  the  aid  of  a  thick  blanket  and 
my  Scotch  plaid,  and  two  woollen  undergarments,  I 
have  passed  a  not  greatly  uncomfortable  night  here 
without  fire.  I  was  told  by  excellent  guides  that  the 
ascent  of  Parnassus  at  this  season  was  dangerous 
on  account  of  the  snows  and  the  cold.  In  order  to 
travel  well,  one  must  have  a  soldier's  capacity  of 
physical  endurance.  If  I  had  brought  with  me  two 
more  blankets,  I  could  have  slept  here  six  hours, 
unless  disturbed  by  robbers  and  brigands.  As  things 
were,  I  slept  very  soundly  about  two  hours.  But  I 
did  not  come  to  this  height  to  sleep,  and  needed  no 
effort  to  keep  myself  awake. 

No  single  outlook  in  Greece  commands  a  view 
over  the  whole  of  the  famous  historical  territory ; 
but  this  summit  of  Parnassus  is  celebrated  for  over- 
looking more  points  of  interest  than  any  other  height 
in  Greece  or  perhaps  in  the  world. 

From  here  Mount  Olympus  bounds  the  view  north- 
ward. The  great  ranges  near  Corinth  and  in  the 
Peloponnesus  close  the  prospect  southward.  On  the 
east  the  ^gean  and  on  the  west  the  Ionian  Sea  is 
visible.  Imagine  what  the  details  must  be  in  an 
outline  so  magnificent. 

The  rugged  height  behind  the  pass  of  Thermop- 
ylae lies  yonder  under  the  fresh  morning  light.  I 
look  on  Ossa,  Pelion,  and  Olympus  at  a  distance, 
and  with  a  glass  the  Vale  of  Tempe  itself  can  be 
made  out.     Boeotia,  Argolis,  Elis,  and  Arcadia  are 


216  OCCIDENT. 

in  view.  All  tlie  northern  and  middle  tracts  of 
Greece  are  spread  forth  as  a  map.  The  mountains 
that  divided  the  territories  and  induced  so  much  po- 
litical division  in  Greece  roll  northward,  and  north- 
eastward, and  westward,  and,  beyond  the  Gulf  of 
Corinth,  southward,  like  waves  of  the  sea.  The  eye, 
from  this  flinty,  and  once  volcanic  summit  where  the 
Nine  Muses  dwelt,  sweeps  above  every  other  height 
except  one  in  the  chain  of  Olympus.  I  have  seen 
sunset,  moonrise,  and  sunrise  here.  All  through  the 
night,  except  an  hour  or  two,  bells  tinkled  liquidly 
from  the  high  mountain  folds.  At  midnight  the 
constellation  of  the  Cross  hung  exactly  above  me. 
Eagles  float  here  now  in  the  majesty  of  the  morn- 
ing. 


APPENDIX, 


WITH 


ADDITIONAL  LECTURESo 


APPENDIX  I. 


THE  DECLINE  OF  RATIONALISM  IN  THE  GERMAN 
UNIVERSITIES.! 

I.      GOD   IX   GERMAN  HISTORY. 

Strauss  is  in  his  grave ;  Banr's  doubts  are  solved 
in  the  unseen  ;  Schleiermacher  and  Neander  are 
asleep  on  the  hill  slope  south  of  Berlin  ;  Fichte  and 
Hegel  lie  at  rest  beneath  the  lindens  in  a  cemetery  in 
the  same  city ;  Kant  has  a  peaceful  tomb  at  Konigs- 
berg ;  Richter,  at  Baireuth,  among  his  native  Fichtel- 
gebirge  ;  De  Wette,  at  Basle,  at  the  edge  of  the  Alps ; 
Goethe,  Schiller,  and  Herder,  no  disquiet  wakes  at 
Weimar  ;  Tholuck  has  closed,  and  Julius  Miiller, 
laden  with  more  than  three -score  years  and  ten, 
draws  near  the  end  of  his  victorious  journey ;  Aus- 
tria has  been  humbled,  Sedan  fought,  German  unity 
accomplished. 

The  formation  of  the  new  German  Empire  marks 
broadly  the  close  of  a  great  period  in  German  his- 
tory, extending  from  Frederick  the  Great  to  Bis- 
marck, from  Voltaire  to  Strauss,  from  the  French 
Revolution  to  Sedan. 

1  A  lecture  delivered  before  the  Students  of  Andover  Theological 
Seminary  and  of  the  Yale  Divinity  School,  and  repeated  in  Boston, 
Concord,  and  several  churches  of  Eastern  Massachusetts. 


220  APPENDIX. 

Curiously  enough,  the  measurable  political  peace, 
coming  after  terrific  struggle  to  the  whole  nation,  co- 
incides with  the  measurable  intellectual  peace  com- 
ing after  terrific  struggle  to  the  most  cultivated 
classes.  There  have  been  deluges  of  unrest  ;  but 
conclusions  are  being  reached  as  to  political  unity, 
and  also  as  to  Christianity.  The  greatest  questions 
in  the  mental  and  in  the  political  life  of  Germany 
are  approachmg  repose  in  the  same  period,  and  that 
our  own. 

It  is  an  exceedingly  suggestive  sign  of  the  times 
that,  in  proportion  to  population,  Great  Britain  has 
but  one  student  in  a  course  of  higher  university  edu- 
cation where  Germany  has  five.^  In  this  age  it  is 
from  Germany  that  decisions  in  momentous  intellec- 
tual questions  proceed.  Every  day  the  world  grows 
more  international.  There  are  now  no  foreign  lands. 
It  has  been  said  that  in  England  one  is  never  quite 
outside  of  London,  because  the  city  inflames  the  whole 
island.  So,  in  science,  one  is  never  quite  outside  of 
the^  German  universities,  for  they  inflame  the  whole 
field  of  culture. 

Suppose  that  there  were  to  be  lifted  from  the  waste 
of  some  ocean  a  new  continent,  peopled  by  a  class  of 
men  equal  to  the  Greeks  in  intellectual  power,  and 
their  superior  in  candor  and  learning.  Let  moral 
culture  abound  in  the  family  life  of  the  nation,  but 
let  church  life  be  weak ;  let  political  causes  choke 
the  church  ;  let  wars  storm  over  the  territory  ;  let 

1  Arnold,  Professor  Matthew,  Higher  Schools  and  Universities  in 
Germany,  pp.  148,  149.  Loudon.  1874.  Compare  Hart,  German 
Universities,  p.  322.     1875. 


APPENDIX.  221 

public  discussion  be  free  only  in  philosophy,  theology, 
and  art  ;  let  system  after  system  of  metaphysical 
speculation  arise,  reign  briefly,  and  be  superseded; 
let  the  universities  of  the  nation  lead  the  world  in 
modern  science ;  let  Christianity,  probed  to  the  in- 
nermost by  restless  spirits,  with  no  outlet  in  politics 
for  their  activity,  take  its  chances  among  this  peo- 
ple ;  let  it  go  through  many  a  struggle ;  let  it  ask  no 
assistance,  and  fight  ever  at  a  disadvantage  ;  let  it  be 
partially  triumphed  over  in  appearance  ;  let  it  rally ; 
let  it  prevail ;  let  it  come  forth  crowned  :  we  should 
say,  if  God  were  to  lift  such  a  continent,  with  such 
a  history,  from  the  Atlantic,  that  He  had  spoken  to 
men.  But  such  a  people,  with  such  a  history.  He  has 
lifted,  in  the  last  century,  in  Germany,  from  the 
deeps  of  time. 

II.      THE   MISCHIEF    OF   FRAGMEXTARINESS. 

What  have  been  the  causes  of  the  power  of  ration- 
alism in  Germany  in  the  last  hundred  years  ? 

What  are  the  proofs  of  the  decline  of  rationalism 
in  the  German  universities? 

Who  are  the  dead,  the  wounded,  and  the  living, 
after  the  battle  of  a  century  ? 

Chief  among  the  difficulties  with  which  faith  in 
Germany  has  contended  has  been  one-sidedness  in 
the  presentations  of  Christianity.  Science  without 
earnestness,  or  earnestness  without  science  —  these 
were  the  two  halves  of  German  theological  thought 
a  century  ago.  Most  mischievous,  almost  fatal,  was 
the  fragmentariness  of  a  cold,  speculative  orthodox- 
ism,  on  the  oue  side,  and  of  a  warm,  unspeculative 


222  APPENDIX. 

pietism,  on  the  otlier.^  If  Spener  and  Wolff  could 
have  been  rolled  into  one  man  ;  if  Francke  and  Seni- 
le r  could  have  lived  in  one  head,  perhaps  English 
deism  and  Voltaire  and  his  skeptical  crew  at  Freder- 
ick's court  had  never  stung,  or,  if  they  had  stung, 
had  never  fly-blown,  the  fair,  white,  honest  breast  of 
Germany  to  fevers  and  eruptions. 

Average  German  natures  are  not  as  well  balanced 
as  the  English,  although  broader  and  more  subtile  in- 
tellectually, and  deeper  in  nearl}^  every  phase  of  the 
inner  life,  except  only  those  royal  English  traits, 
self-esteem  and  the  love  of  power. 

There  are  three  types  of  German  heads  :  that  of 
Goethe,  or  the  regular ;  that  of  Schiller,  or  the  irreg- 
ular ;  that  of  Bismarck,  or  the  thick,  high,  and  round. 
A  head  of  the  Schiller  type  in  theology  knows  little 
of  the  pietistic  side  ;  a  head  of  the  Goethe  type,  little 
of  the  philosophic  ;  only  a  head  of  the  Bismarck  type 
combines  the  two.  The  regular  type  is  often,  like 
Goethe,  poAverful  in  the  intuitive  and  imaginative, 
and  not  so  in  the  distinctively  philosophical  faculties.^ 
The  irregular  type  may  have  great  imaginative  and 
philosophical,  but  lacks  intuitive,  power.  A  German 
philosopher  with  the  irregular  head  of  a  Schiller  ^  is 

1  Compare  Farrar's  Critical  History  of  Free  Thought,  Lecture  vi. ; 
Hagenbach's  German  Rationalism ;  its  Rise,  Progress,  and  Decline. 
vii.-xi.     T.  &  T.  Clark.     1865. 

2  "  Ein  Kerl,  der  speculirt, 

1st  wie  ein  Vieh,  auf  dlirrer  Heide 
Von  einem  bosen  Geist  herumgefuhrt, 
Und  rings  umher  ist  grline  Weide."  —  Goethe. 
^  "  His  form  ...  at  no  time  could  boast  of  faultless  symmetry. 
He  was  tall  and  strongly  bowed,  but  unmuscular  and  lean.  .  .  .  His 
face  was  pale,  the  cheeks  and  temples  rather  hollow,  the  chin  some- 
what deep  and  slightly  projecting,  the  nose  irregularly  aquiline."  — 
Carlyle,  Collected  Works,  Life  of  Schiller,  p.  223. 


APPENDIX.  223 

sure  to  be  one-sided,  and  yet  may  be  as  endlessly 
acute  and  imaginatively  brilliant  as  lie  is  unbalanced. 
Heads  of  the  Bismarck  type  naturally  devote  them- 
selves to  statesmanship  or  to  positive  science ;  and 
it  will  be  found  that  a  line  of  such  brains,  like  Von 
Moltke  in  war,  Trendelenburg,  Nitzsch,  Dorner, 
Tholuck,  and  Julius  Miiller  in  theology,  Kiepert  in 
geography,  Lepsius  in  archaeology,  and  Curtius  in 
history,  have  exhibited  the  balanced  thought  of  the 
nation. 

No  one  has  read  German  history,  if  he  has  not  il- 
lustrated the  nariative  by  the  portraits  of  the  leaders 
of  thought.!  Eccentric  systems,  in  Germany  as  else- 
where, have  come  from  small  or  irregular  brains,  as 
in  the  cases  of  Strauss,  Schenkel,  and  Schopenhauer. 

III.      DISUSE    OF    THE    DISTINCTION   BETWEEN   CON- 
VERTED AND  UNCONVERTED. 

Fruitful,  exceedingly,  among  the  causes  of  the 
power  of  rationalism  in  Germany,  has  been  the  ab- 

1  "  In  all  my  poor  historical  investigations,  it  has  been,  and  always 
is,  one  of  the  most  primary  wants  to  procure  a  bodily  likeness  of  the 
personage  inquired  after  ;  a  good  portrait,  if  such  exists  ;  failing 
that,  even  an  indifferent,  if  sincere  one.  .  .  Every  student  and  reader 
of  history  who  studies  earnestly  to  conceive  for  himself  what  manner 
of  fact  and  man  this  or  the  other  vague  historical  name  can  have 
been,  will,  as  the  first  and  directest  indication  of  all,  search  eagerly 
for  a  portrait ;  for  all  the  reasonable  portraits  there  are;  and  never 
rest  till  he  have  made  out,  if  possible,  what  the  man's  natural  face 
was  like.  Often  I  have  found  a  portrait  superior  in  real  instruction 
to  half  a  dozen  written  biogrnphies,  as  biographies  are  written;  or 
rather,  let  me  say,  I  have  found  that  the  portrait  was  as  a  small  lighted 
candle  by  which  the  biographies  could  for  the  first  time  be  read,  and 
some  human  interpretation  be  made  of  them."  —  Carlyle,  Collected 
Works,  vol.  xi.  pp.  241,  242. 


224  APPENDIX. 

sence,  not  from  its  religious  doctrines,  but  from  its 
church  forms,  of  that  distinction  between  the  con- 
verted and  the  unconverted  so  familiar  in  Scotland, 
England,  and  the  United  States. 

"  I  regret  nothing  so  much,"  said  Professor  Tho- 
luck  to  me  once,  with  the  emphasis  of  tears  in  his 
deep,  spiritual  eyes,  "as  that  the  line  of  demarcation 
between  the  church  and  the  world,  which  Jonathan 
Edwards  and  Whitefield  drew  so  deeply  on  the  mind 
of  New  England,  is  almost  unknown,  not  to  the 
theological  doctrines,  but  to  the  ecclesiastical  forms 
of  Germany.  With  us  confirmation  is  compulsory. 
Children  of  unbelieving,  as  well  as  of  believing,  fam- 
ilies must  at  an  early  age  be  baptized,  and  profess 
faith  in  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost.  Without  a 
certificate  of  confirmation  in  some  church,  employ- 
ment cannot  be  legally  obtained. ^  After  confirma- 
tion, the  religious  standing  is  assumed  to  be  Chris- 
tian ;  after  that,  we  are  all  church  members.  Thus 
it  happens  that  in  our  state  churches  the  converted 
and  the  unconverted  are  mixed  pell-mell  together." 

Is  Bismarck  a  Christian  ?  I  asked  once  of  an  ac- 
complished German  teacher.  "  Why  not  ?  Is  he  a 
Jew  ?  Is  he  a  Mahometan  ?  "  was  the  reply.  To 
ask  in  Germany  if  a  man  is  a  Christian,  in  the  Eng- 
lish, Scotch,  or  American  sense  of  that  question,  you 
must  use  expletives :  Is  the  man  a  real,  a  shining, 
an  exemplary  Christian  ?  for  the  unexplained  word, 

1  In  a  few  of  the  cities  of  North  Germany  infamous  licenses  were 
granted  to  women  for  an  infamous  employment,  but  only  after  the 
applicants  for  licenses  had  exhibited  to  the  licensing  oflScer  their  cer- 
tificates of  confirmation  ! 


APPENDIX.  225 

which  in  oiir  colloquial  use  means  that  a  man  is  con- 
verted, in  Germany  means  only  that  he  has  been 
confirmed. 

Pastoral  care  of  the  mass  of  the  population  is, 
of  course,  very  inefficient  under  this  vastly  maladroit 
organization  of  the  German  state  church;  public  and 
private  devotional  meetings  languish;  church  disci- 
pline is  often  no  more  than  a  name.^ 

"  We  have  no  Sabbath-schools  in  Heidelberg," 
said  a  distinguished  and  Christian  professor  of  the 
Heidelberg  University  to  me  once ;  "  and,  with  ex- 
ceptions not  worth  mentioning,  there  are  none  in 
Germany .2  We  do  not  need  them  ;  for  the  instruc- 
tion you  give  in  America  in  Sabbath-schools,  we  give 
in  the  secular  schools.  In  our  common  week-day 
school-instruction  an  hour  is  specially  set  apart  for 
teaching  the  children  the  biblical  histories  and  the 
catechism.^ 

1  Compare  Schaff,  Professor  Philip,  Germany,  its  Universities,  The- 
ology, and  Religion,  chap.  xi.  See,  also,  his  instructive  contrasts  be- 
tween German  and  American  church  life,  mDer  Burgerkrieg  unci  das 
christliche  Leben  in  Nord  Amerika.     Berlin.     1866. 

2  "  The  rightly  so-called  American  Sunday-schools,  .  .  .  since 
Mr.  Woodruff  visited  us  in  1863,  have  augmented  to  about  one  thou- 
sand, and  the  number  of  children  therein  instructed  by  more  than 
four  thousand  young  men  and  women  to  about  eighty  thousand."  — 
Krummacher,  Rev.  Hermann,  Christian  Life  in  Germany.  Report  of 
Evangelical  Alliance,  T^.  9i2.     New  York.     1873. 

3  I  copy  from  my  notes  written  at  Heidelberg  some  account  of  a 
favorable  specimen  of  the  religious  teaching  in  German  schools. 
"  Friday,  Nov.  22.  This  morning,  from  eight  to  nine,  I  witnessed  the 
religious  instruction  which  is  given  to  one  of  the  upper  classes  in  the 
Lyceum  of  Heidelberg,  Twenty-six  boys  of  about  fourteen  years  of 
age  were:  1.  Questioned  on  the  second  chapter  of  Genesis;  2.  Fur- 
nished by  their  teacher  with  further  explanations  of  the  history  j 
3.  Made  to  take  down  in  writmg  from  dictation  certain  heads  sum- 

15 


226  APPENDIX. 

"But  what  you  exj)lam  as  a  solemn  public  pro- 
fession of  faith  on  entrance  into  membership)  with 
a  church  does  not  exist  in  Germany.  The  distinc- 
tion which  you  say  prevails  in  New  England,  and 
America  generally,  between  persons  who  have  made 
such  a  profession  of  faith  and  of  a  renewed  character 
and  those  who  have  not,  —  the  former  being  called 
church-members,  and  distinctively  Christians,  while 
the  latter  are  not,  —  is  a  distinction  not  in  use  with 
us.  We  are  all  confirmed  in  youth,  and  after  confir- 
mation are  all  members  of  the  church,  and  all  known 
as  Christians. 

"  What  you  describe  as  a  gathering  among  church- 
members  for  devotional  purposes,  or  a  prayer-meet- 
ing, does  not  exist  with  us,  except  among  the  very 
severely  orthodox.  Here  in  Heidelberg,  among  the 
higher  orthodox,  there  are  small  meetings  called  con- 
venticles, held  from  house  to  house,  in  private  rooms, 
but  not  in  the  church.  Our  theological  students  do 
not  have  prayer-meetings. 

marizing  the  instruction.  Strauss  himself  could  hardly  have  tripped 
up  the  explanations  given  by  the  teacher,  whom  I  took  for  a  young 
minister.  The  history  was  called  *  a  symbolical  representation  of  the 
ideal  and  actual  state  of  man  ;  of  the  circumstances  arising  in  the 
human  dispositions  under  temptation ;  of  the  action  of  conscience 
before,  during,  and  after  sin.'  The  conversation  of  the  woman  with 
the  serpent  illustrated,  first,  doubt  as  to  the  authority  of  the  moral 
law  ;  secondly,  the  force  of  passion  in  presence  of  its  objects;  lastly, 
remorse  and  shame.  Symbolical  representation  of  the  action  of  con- 
science was  what  the  history  was  explained  to  be.  On  the  whole,  I 
was  pleased  with  the  exercise ;  although  the  substitution  of  such  in- 
struction for  Sabbath-schools  leaves  the  churches  very  inert.  There  is 
in  the  Lyceum,  this  teacher  told  me,  a  Catholic,  and  also  a  Jewish 
religious  exercise.  The  Protestant,  such  as  I  saw,  occupies  two  hours 
a  week.  '  Wir  haben  keine  Sonntag  Schulen,'  said  this  teacher,  when 
I  spoke  of  schools  of  that  kind  in  America." 


APPENDIX.  227 

"What  you  explain  as  pastoral  visitation  is  not 
practised  with  us,  unless  in  a  few  country  churches. 
You  will  find  something  in  books  as  to  our  theory  of 
pastoral  care  ;  but  it  is  by  no  means  the  general  cus- 
tom of  our  preachers  to  visit  their  people  for  the 
purpose  of  conversation  on  personal  religion.  Were 
a  pastor  to  open  conversation  on  the  personal  re- 
ligion of  a  man,  in  the  man's  house,  the  reply  would 
probably  be :  '  There  is  the  door  ;  you  can  go  out,  or 
I  must.' 

''  If  a  student  in  the  University  were  to  lead  a  dis- 
orderly life  here  at  Heidelberg,  and  yet  were  a  mem- 
ber of  Peter's  Kirche,  where  the  most  of  the  profes- 
sors worship,  the  church,  as  such,  would  do  nothing 
to  call  him  to  account.  You  ask  what  the  pastor 
would  do  in  such  a  case  :  he  preaches  on  Sunday,  and 
nothing  farther  is  within  the  limits  to  which  he  is 
expected  to  confine  himself.^  Family  life  in  Ger- 
many would  do  what  it  could  to  bring  to  a  sense 
of  his  duty  any  immoral  person  ;  but  the  church 
preaches,  and  does  not  visit  or  exercise  discipline  in 
such  cases  as  you  say  often  result  in  the  exclusion  of 
a  person  from  church  membership  in  New  England. 
In  very  extreme  cases,  indeed,  the  University  expels 
privately  a  disorderly  student." 

At  Halle,  at  Berlin,  at  Leipzig,  at  Dresden,  at 
Gottingen,  and  at  Heidelberg,  I  looked  in  vain  for 
Sabbath-schools  and  prayer-meetings. 

Halle  has  led  the  religious  life  of  Germany  for  a 
hundred  and   fifty  years ;    and  yet,   said   Professor 

1  Compare  Tholuck,  Das  academische  Lehen  des  17*^^^  Jahrhun- 
derts. 


228  APPENDIX. 

Tlioluck  to  me  :  "  There  are  no  devotional  meetings 
in  our  churches  ^yorth  attending.  It  may  be  said 
that,  according  to  the  Scottish  and  New  England 
idea,  the  state  churches  of  Germany  have  no  prayer- 
meetings.  Once  a  week,  in  the  churches  of  Halle, 
there  is  a  biblical  exercise.  The  pastor  always 
leads ;  and  the  only  remarks  that  are  made,  he 
makes.  Sometimes,  in  this  exercise,  a  Christian 
member  of  the  audience  offers  a  prayer ;  but  this  is 
all.  Our  theological  students  may  know  more  He- 
brew, Greek,  and  philosophy  than  yours  ;  but  most 
unfortunately,  as  they  have  had  no  training  to  such 
gatherings  in  the  state  churches,  they  do  not  come 
together  in  devotional  meetings  as  yours  do.  Bene 
orasse,  est  bene  studuisse,  you  understand  better  than 
we.  I  have  been  subjected  to  no  distress  in  my  lec- 
ture-room greater  than  that  caused  by  the  fact  that 
our  churches  leave  unsupplied,  in  the  minds  of  the 
students,  that  devotional  seriousness  and  elevation 
which  are  the  only  fit  preparation  for  scientific  study 
of  religious  truth.  I  beseech  you  not  to  judge  of 
the  condition  of  religion  in  Germany  by  the  condi- 
tion of  our  state  churches."  ^ 

1  "  Die  veranderte  Ansicht  vom  Verlialtnisse  der  Kirche  zura  Staat 
hatte  eine  Veranderung  der  Stellung  des  Geistlichen  zur  Folge.  Je- 
mehr  die  Thomasiusschc  Ansicht  vom  Geistlichen  als  Staatsdiener 
sich  verbreitet,  desto  raehr  schwiudet  der  religiose  Nimbus,  mit  welchem 
der  geistliche  Stand  bisher  umkleidet  gewesen  :  er  tritt  in  der  Reihe 
die  Staatsdiener."  —  Tholuck,  Geschichte  des  Rational ismus,  Erste 
Ahtheilung,  p.  167.  "In  the  year  1808  all  consistories,  both  upper 
and  lower,  were  swept  away ;  and  until  some  considerable  time  after 
our  war  of  deliverance,  our  evangelical  church  existed  without  even 
the  breath  of  one  single  church  institution  or  authority.  The  gov- 
ernment transacted  all  the  former  business  of  the  consistories.  ...  I 


APPENDIX.  229 

Most  assuredly  must  an  American  maintain,  how- 
ever, that  the  health  of  religion  in  a  nation  depends 
on  a  mens  sana  in  corpore  sano  ;  the  universities  are 
the  mind,  but  the  church  training  of  the  people  is 
the  body ;  and  when  the  latter,  as  in  Germany,  is 
seamed  through  and  through  with  weakness  and  dis- 
ease, how  can  the  former  remain  sound  ?  The  eye 
for  religion  is  not  cultivated  by  the  training  which 
in  Germany  usually  precedes  theological  study.  The 
moral  atmosphere  of  the  German  universities  exhales 
from  broad  marshes  of  confessedly  stagnant  state 
church  life ;  and  it  is  in  the  condition  of  the  vapors 
which  these  neglected,  steaming,  batrachian  fiats 
cast  up,  that  the  wonders  some  German  university 
telescopes  have  seen  in  the  sky  find  an  important 
explanation.  Face  to  face  with  the  nearly  omni- 
present lack  of  what  New  England  and  Scotland 
call  spiritual  cultivation,  I,  for  one,  did  not,  when  in 
Germany,  and  meditating  long  on  the  banks  of  the 
Rhine,  the  Saale,  the  Neckar,  the  Ilm,  the  Spree,  the 
Elbe,  and  the  Danube,  feel  impressed  with  a  tenth 
part  of  the  intellectual  respect  for  German  skepti- 
cism which  it  is  not  uncommon  to  find  in  the  minds 
of  untravelled  men  in  America. 

A  noble,  but  religiously  neglected  people,  naturally 
honest  and  earnest,  the  German  masses,  as  in  the 
days  of  Tacitus,  made  a  kind  of  religion  of  family 
life.     Hegel  was  proud  of  the  fact  that  G-emiithlich- 

see  no  help  for  German  Christendom,  save  in  the  formation  of 
churches.  Yes,  churches  !  That  is  my  watchword,  —  my  loud,  cry- 
ing appeal  to  the  Church  of  German}'',  which  needs  churches.  They 
are  the  sole  condition  of  life  for  the  church."  —  King  Frederick  Wil- 
liam IV.    Two  Treatises.    1845. 


230  APPENDIX. 

keit^  tlie  name  for  what  lie  considered  tlie  most  char- 
acteristic trait  of  the  Germans,  is  a  word  Avithout 
any  equivalent  in  French  or  English  ;  ^  kindness  of 
nature,  tenderness,  soulfulness  are,  perhaps,  the  best 
English  expressions  for  it ;  and  this  quality,  conjoined 
with  the  renowned  German  sincerity,  gives  the  na- 
tion a  capacity  for  religious  culture  excelled  by  that 
of  no  other  on  the  globe,  and  fit  to  make  it  the  mis- 
sion of  Germany,  as  Hegel  thought  it  was,  to  bear 
through  the  ages  the  Clii'istian  princij)le.  But  the 
capacity  is  as  yet  unoccupied. 

Studying  often  and  searchingly  the  faces  of  the 
common  people  in  the  market  places  of  Europe,  I 
used  to  think  that  to  produce  a  salutary  effect  by 
speaking  to  them  on  religion,  I  should  need  a  day 
with  the  Germans,  and  succeed  on  the  merits  of  the 
case  ;  an  age  with  the  English  of  the  lower  orders, 
and  succeed  only  when  my  cause  had  become  respect- 
able among  the  upper  classes;  a  millennium  with 
the  French,  and  succeed  then  only  to  expect  a  revo- 
lution of  opinion  every  three  days. 

IV.   CONTAGION  mOM  FEAXCE. 

Moral,  intellectual,  and  social  contagion  from 
France  must  be  mentioned  with  painful  emphasis 
among  the  causes  of  the  power  of  rationalism  in  Ger- 
many. 

Voltaire  and  Frederick  the  Great  at  Sans  Souci : 
you   know  the  story  made  so  brilliant  by  Carlyle.^ 

1  Hegel,  Philosophy  of  Historij,  part  ix.  sect.  1,  chap.  1. 

2  "  There  is  nothing  in  imaginative  literature  superior  in  its  own 
way  to  the  Episode  of  Voltaire  in  the  Fritziad.     It  is  delicious  in  hu- 


APPENDIX.  231 

From  tlie  time  of  Louis  XIV.  to  that  of  Napoleon, 
the  numberless  petty  courts  of  Germany  took  their 
ideas  of  morality  and  taste  from  Paris  and  Versailles 
almost  as  slavishly  as  Frederick  the  Great  took  his 
literary  fashions  from  Voltaire.  Think,  too,  of  the 
humiliations  of  Germany  under  Napoleon,  when  his 
personal  rule  extended  from  the  Tiber  to  the  Elbe, 
and  Avhen  Leipzig  and  Berlin  had  passed  into  king- 
doms dependent  on  France.  Until  Lessing's  day, 
French  taste  ruled  German  literature ;  there  was  no 
German  literature.  Even  Goethe  thought  his  coun- 
try unwise  in  resisting  Napoleon  ;  and  the  war  of 
liberation,  by  the  colossal  blows  of  Leipzig  and  Wa- 
terloo, only  fractured  a  yoke  which  it  is  to  be  hoped 
that  Sedan  has  broken  completely  in  twain. 

In  Halle,  in  1872,  I  found  in  a  large  circulating 
library,  in  the  best  bookstore  of  the  city,  patronized 
by  respectable  people,  and  within  a  bow-shot  of  the 
University,  a  complete  set  of  eighteen  or  twenty  vol- 
umes of  the  works  of  an  infamous  French  writer, 
whose  productions,  if  exposed  for  sale  in  London,  Ed- 
inburgh, or  Boston,  would  be  seized  by  the  police,  or 
would  ruin  the  reputation  of  vendor  and  purchaser, 
—  a  great  exception,  no  doubt,  in  Halle, ^  —  but  the 
books  were  worn  black  by  use. 

mor,  masterly  in  minute  characterization.  ...  It  is  in  such  things 
that  Mr.  Carlyle  is  beyond  all  rivalry,  and  that  we  must  go  back  to 
Shakespeare  for  a  comparison."  —  Lowell,  Professor  James  Russell, 
Ml)  Study  Windows,  Carlyle,  p.  135. 

1  The  wi.se  and  patriotic  Frederick  Perthes  wrote,  in  1826  :  "When 
I  was  a  child  enlightenment  occupied  the  place  of  religion,  and  free- 
masonry that  of  the  church.  Men  of  culture  knew  the  Bible  only  by 
hearsay.  .  .  .  During  the  first  ten  years  of  my  establishment  at  Ham- 
burg, I  sold  not  a  single  Bible  except  to  a  few  bookbinders   in   the 


232  APPENDIX. 

I  had  not  been  in  Paris  a  week  before  I  was  per- 
manently cured  of  all  intellectual  respect  for  French 
skepticism.  Tacitus  says  the  ancient  Germans 
whipped  the  adulteress  through  the  streets  and  buried 
the  adulterer  alive  in  the  mud.^  But  Julius  Caesar 
speaks  of  polygamous  practices  among  the  Gauls, 
and  describes  them  as  showy,  cruel,  and  volatile.^ 
Thomas  Carlyle  calls  Paris  the  city  of  all  the  devils.^ 
"  Poor  Paris,"  I  heard  him  say  once  in  his  study  at 
Chelsea,  "  they  have  done  nothing  there  but  lie  for 
eight  hundred  years."  Bismarck,  speaking  with  face- 
tious seriousness,  says,  that  if  you  take  from  the  av- 
erage native  Parisian  —  not  the  Frenchman,  who  is 
a  different  character  —  his  tailor,  the  hair-dresser, 
and  the  cook,  what  is  left  is  Red  Indian.  These  men 
ought  to  know  France  ;  but  if  their  representations 

neighboring  country  towns  ;  and  I  remember  very  well  a  good  sort  of 
man  who  came  into  my  shop  for  a  Bible,  and  took  great  pains  to  as- 
sure me  that  it  was  for  a  person  about  to  be  confirmed,  fearing,  evi- 
dently, lest  I  should  suppose  it  was  for  himself.  .  .  .  Since  the 
French  Revolution,  the  rod  of  divine  chastisement  has  not  been 
wielded  in  vain  on  our  lacerated  country.  The  sensual,  godless  fri- 
volity of  the  last  century  wanders  about  only  as  a  dusky,  obsolete 
ghost."  —  Perthes,  Frederick,  Memoirs,  vol.  ii,  pp.  243,  246. 

1  "  Inesse  quin  etiam  sanctum  aliquid  et  providum  putant ;  nee  aut 
consilia  carum  aspernantur  aut  responsa  negligunt.  .  .  .  Quamquam 
severa  illic  matrimonia,  nee  ullara  morum  partem  magis  laudaveris. 
Nam  prope  soli  barbarornm  singulis  uxoribus  coutenti  sunt.  .  .  .  Pau- 
cissima  in  tarn  numerosa  gente  adulteria;  quorum  poena  praesens,  et 
maritis  permissa  :  accisis  crinibus,  nudatam,  coram  propinquis  ex- 
pellit  domo  maritus  ac  per  omnem  vicum  verbere  agit.  Publicatee 
enim  pudicitiae  nulla  venia.  Non  forma,  non  octate,  non  opibus 
maritum  invenerit."  —  Tacitus,  Gervianice  8,  18,  19.  Cf.  Csesar,  Z)e 
Bello  Galileo,  vi.  21. 

2  Caesar,  De  Bello  Galileo,  iii.  19  ;  vi.  16-19. 

3  Carlyle,  The  French  Revolution,  passim. 


APPENDIX.  233 

fit  this  century  less  well  than  the  last,  in  the  city 
which  is  the  play-ground  and  sewer  of  Europe,  it  is 
yet  certain  that  average  Paris  is  politically  and  mor- 
ally the  city  of  little  hojs.  For  ethical  and  ethno- 
logical reasons,  it  is  of  no  consequence  what  is  thought 
of  theology  by  Paris.  There  are  several  chambers 
lacking  in  the  typical  Parisian  brain.  In  Germany 
can  be  found  everything  good  but  elegance  ;  in 
France,  nothing  good  but  elegance.  Eternity  is  not 
visible  from  Paris. 

V.    SUEFERIKG  OF   GERMAKY  IN  EUROPEAN  WARS. 

Demoralization  of  the  people  by  protracted  and  al- 
most incessant  European  wars  deserves  a  high  rank 
among  the  causes  of  the  power  of  rationalism  in  Ger- 
many, even  in  the  last  century. 

"  Scratch  a  Russian,"  said  Napoleon,  "  and  you 
will  find  beneath  the  surface  a  Tartar."  Scratch 
peasant-life  in  Central  Europe  once,  and  you  find  the 
wars  of  the  first  Napoleon  ;  twice,  and  you  find  the 
Thirty  Years'  War  ;  thrice,  and  you  find  the  Middle 
Ages. 

After  the  sack  of  Magdeburg,  Tilly  cast  six  thou- 
sand bodies  of  the  citizens  into  the  Elbe,  and  the 
river  was  choked  by  the  mass.  Soldiers  in  the  Thirty 
Years'  War  were  largely  foreigners  and  mercenaries, 
and  paid,  from  necessity  and  on  principle,  in  beauty 
and  booty.  Cossacks,  Walloons,  Croats,  Italians, 
Irishmen,  and  Turks  fought  with  Scots,  Dutchmen, 
Danes,  Swedes,  Laplanders,  and  Finns.  Germany  for 
a  generation  was  a  howling  hunting-ground  for  the 
rabble  of  all  nations.     One  hundred  years,  to  a  day, 


234  APPENDIX. 

after  the  Augsburg  Confession  was  promulgated,  that 
is  on  June  24, 1G30,  John  Winthrop  was  sailing  into 
Boston  Harbor,  and  Gustavus  Adolphus  was  landing 
fifteen  thousand  men  in  Pomerania.  For  a  hundred 
years  after  that  date,  the  plundering  bands  of  Wal- 
lenstein  did  not  disappear.  From  fear  of  starvation, 
a  Swedish  general,  in  the  second  half  of  the  war,  re- 
fused to  lead  an  army  through  the  once  fat  plains  of 
the  Oder  and  the  Elbe,  from  the  Baltic  to  the  Saxon 
Switzerland.  When  Louis  XIV.  stole  Strasburg,  in 
1681,  the  dead  German  Empire  was  too  feeble  to  re- 
sent the  robbery.  The  Turks,  at  the  instigation  of 
the  French  king,  swarmed  far  up  the  Danube,  and 
laid  down  forty-eight  thousand  lives  in  a  nearly  suc- 
cessful siege  of  Vienna.  The  Thirty  Years'  War 
gave  to  death  half  of  the  population  of  Germany.  It 
left  her  divided  into  more  than  three  hundred  petty 
states,  each  with  the  right  to  declare  war  and  make 
peace ;  and  into  fourteen  hundred  yet  pettier  polit- 
ical fragments,  each  with  the  same  right,  and  each 
depending  upon  a  peeled  peasantry  for  the  means  of 
feeding  the  ostentation  and  leprosies  of  courts  filled 
with  nobles  often  unable  to  read  or  wi'ite,  and  com- 
bining with  soundly  orthodox  belief  incredible  coarse- 
ness, dulness,  and  savagery.  Shivering  the  once  or- 
derly and  majestic  German  constellation  into  aster- 
oids, it  left  in  existence  no  central  sun.  It  allowed 
merely  asteroid  princes  to  acquire  such  power  that 
for  two  centuries  national  unity  was  impracticable. 
It  subjected  all  Germany  to  the  inroads  of  French 
armies.  It  brought  into  fashion  French  manners. 
Switzerland  and  the  Netherlands,  at  one  time  a  part 


APPENDIX.  235 

of  the  empire,  were  given  up  at  the  Peace  of  West- 
phalia. In  Switzerland  Germany  lost  its  best  for- 
tress, and  in  the  Netherlands  its  best  port;  in  the 
former,  its  surest  defence  against  attack  by  the  Ro- 
mance nations  ;  in  the  latter,  its  surest  means  of  in- 
fluence on  the  sea  and  in  remote  regions  of  the  world. 
Great  before,  for  two  centuries  after  the  close  of  the 
Thirty  Years'  War,  Germany  founded  no  colony  on 
any  shore  and  showed  no  flag  on  any  ocean. -^ 

When  the  French,  in  1689,  blew  up  the  towers  of 
Heidelberg;  swung  a  firebrand  up  and  down  both 
shores  of  the  Rhine  ;  filled  the  Palatinate  with  the 
hungry,  the  naked,  and  the  frozen ;  scattered  to  the 
winds,  at  Spires,  the  splintered  coffins  and  violated 
dust  of  the  German  emperors  ;  and  at  Treves,  Jiilich, 
and  Cologne  compelled  the  peasants  to  plough  down 
their  standing  corn,  Louis  XIYth's  plan  was  to  pro- 
tect himself  from  Germany  by  making  the  Palati- 
nate, and  the  middle  region  of  the  Rhine,  a  desert. 

With  Frederick  the  Great  came  war  on  war ;  with 
Napoleon,  war  on  war.  Csesar's  robe  was  not  so  full 
of  dagger-rents  as  is  German  soil  of  battle-fields.  In 
German-speaking  lands  lie  Magdeburg,  Liitzen,  Nord- 
lingen,  Prague,  Rossbach,  Hohenlinden,  Austerlitz, 
Eylau,  Aspern,  Erlingen,  Wagram,  Jena,  Leipzig, 
Waterloo,  Langensalza,  Sadowa,  and  Koniggratz,  — 

"Poor  dumb  mouths,  .  .  . 
Mark  how  the  blood  of  Caesar  followed  them." 

1  Compare  Bancroft,  History  of  the  United  States,  vol.  x.  p.  83  ; 
Menzel,  Wolfgang,  Geschichte  der  Deutschen,  5  Aufl.  1856  (Eng. 
trans,  in  Bohu's  Library) ;  Menzel,  Karl  Adolf,  Neuere  Geschichte 
der  Deutschen,  2  Aufl.,  6  Bde.     1856. 


236  APPENDIX. 


YI.    POLICE   CHRISTIANITY  AS   THE  ALLY  OF   ABSO- 
LUTISM. 

Support  given  by  state  cliurches  to  absolutism  in 
politics,  and  the  consequent  alienation  of  tlie  masses 
of  tlie  population  and  of  the  more  progressive  of 
the  educated  class,  ought  to  be  named  early  in  any 
enumeration  of  the  causes  of  rationalism  in  Ger- 
many. 

Too  often  in  Europe  the  cause  of  infidelity  is  that 
the  Bible  has  been  forced  down  the  throats  of  the 
people  with  a  bayonet,  or  food  taken  from  starving 
lips  by  aristocracies  whose  throttling  and  thievish 
action  a  state  church  has  blessed.  "  I  daily  thank 
God,"  said  Chevalier  Bunsen,  on  his  dymg  bed,  "  that 
I  have  lived  to  see  Italy  free.  Now  twenty-six  mil- 
lions will  be  able  to  believe  that  God  governs  the 
world."  ^  Red  republicanism  as  yet  makes  white  re- 
publicanism impossible  in  Europe.  Still  in  the  trance 
of  perpetuated  horror  of  the  French  Revolution, 
church  and  state  in  Germany  in  1848  united  in  re- 
sisting the  demands  of  the  people  for  political  re- 
forms. Until  very  lately,  any  too  marked  agitation 
for  German  unity  itself  has  been  choked  with  a  strong 
hand,  and  the  churches  applauded  the  act.  Christ- 
lieb  says,  "  that  for  two  centuries  the  law  of  German 
history  has  been  that  infidelity  grows  strong  under 
oppressive,  and  weak  under  just,  civil  regulations."  ^ 

1  Bunsen,  Memoirs  of,  vol.  ii.  p.  562. 

2  "  Nothing  like  the  old  bureaucratic  system  to  produce  and  foster 
rationalism.  .  .  .  Since  the  reawakening  of  political  life,  the  popular 
favor  towards  materialistic  theories  seems  to  have  sensibly  dimia« 


APPENDIX.  237 

Evil  exceedingly  is  that  day  in  a  nation  when  relig- 
ious and  political  interests  flow  in  opposite  direc- 
tions ;  these  opposing  currents  make  the  whirlpool 
that  impales  faith  on  the  tusks  of  the  sea.  The  Ger- 
man population  of  the  ruder  sort  look  on  the  preacher 
as  merely  a  governmental  agent,  and  scoff  at  his 
teaching  as  "  Police  Christianity."  It  must  never  be 
forgotten  that  the  Romish  is  in  Germany  one  of  the 
state  churches,  and  by  compact  organization  and  re- 
ligious loyalty  that  the  subtle  creed  that  the  church 
governs  the  world,  the  pope  the  church,  and  the  Jes- 
uits the  pope,  has  almost  power  enough  to  disinte- 
grate the  new  empire.  As  Bismarck  and  Gladstone  ^ 
are  at  this  moment  proclaiming,  patriotism  and  Jes- 
uit ultramontanism,  now  as  of  old,  mingle  no  better 
than  water  and  fire. 

Vn.    LESIITATIONS  AND    STIMULATIONS   OF   THE  UNI- 
VERSITIES. 

Limitation  of  free  discussion,  in  the  universities 
and  elsewhere,  to  philosophy,  theology,  and  topics  not 
connected  with  the  civil  life  of  the  nation,  has  a  prom- 
inent place  among  the  inciting  causes  of  German  ra- 
tionalism. 

Political  discussion  is  not  free  inside  or  outside  of 
the  universities  in  Prussia.  Politics  absorb  an  ex- 
ceedingly small  portion  of  the  talent  of  educated  men. 
Compared  with  the  swirling,  devouring  whirlpool  of 
political  discussion  in  England  or  America,  German 

ished."  —  Christlieb,  Professor  Theodore,  of  the  University  of  Bonn, 
Modern  Doubt  and  Christian  Belief,  p.  18  {Ens^.  trans.).     1874. 

^  Gladstone,  Hon.  W.  E.,  Pamphlets  on  The   Vatican  Decrees,  and 
Vaticanism.     1875. 


238 


APPENDIX. 


civil  life  is  an  unruffled  sea.^  Great  waves,  unknown 
liere,  roll  there  in  science,  philosopliy,  and  theology. 
Look  into  the  bookstores  at  the  Leipzig  fairs,  or  into 
the  university  lecture  lists  to  get  reports  of  this  com- 
motion among  the  educated  class,  and  not  into  the 
newspapers.  Under  a  vigorously  paternal  govern- 
ment, newspapers  have  little  power,  and  so  attract 
little  talent.  Accordingly  there  are  no  newspapers  in 
Germany  ;  at  least,  none  at  all  comparable  for  ability 
or  influence  with  the  leading  sheets  of  the  English 
or  American  press.  The  universities  in  Germany  ab- 
sorb that  huge  amount  of  intellectual  activity  which 
America  and  England  diffuse  through  an  awakened 
and  multitudinously  throbbing  public  life.  General 
enthusiasm  in  politics  does  not  exist  in  Prussia,  still 
less  in  the  smaller  states  of  the  empire. 

It  is  only  upon  scientific,  philosophical,  and  liter- 
ary topics  that  discussion  in  the  universities  is  fully 
free.  In  the  absence  of  great  political  and  social 
themes,  the  stream  of  intellectual  activity,  which 
never  runs  shallow  in  Germany,  shut  off  from  one 
of  its  natural  channels,  turns  its  whole  force  upon 
philosophy,  science,  and  theology.  If  the  result 
has  in  many  respects  been  excellent,  in  many  also  it 
has  been  unfortunate  ;  for  the  very  current  that  has 

1  "  A  clisinterested  love  of  truth  can  hardly  coexist  with  a  strong 
political  spirit.  In  all  countries  where  tlie  habits  of  tliought  liave 
been  mainly  formed  by  political  life,  Ave  may  discover  a  disposition  to 
make  expediency  the  test  of  truth.  ...  It  is  probable  that  the  capac- 
ity of  pursuing  abstract  truth  for  its  own  sake,  which  has  given  Ger- 
man thinkers  so  great  an  ascendency  in  Europe,  is  in  no  slight  degree 
to  be  attributed  to  the  political  languor  of  their  nation."  —  Lecky, 
Rationalism  in  Europe,  vol.  ii.  p.  145. 


APPENDIX.  239 

made  the  channel  deep  has  borne  with  it  a  drift-wood 
of  utterly  secular,  turbulent,  and  intriguing  spirits, 
whose  natural  outlet  would  have  been  politics,  and 
who  had  no  calling,  except  from  necessity,  to  discuss 
any  other  theme. 

The  brilliancy  of  a  German  professor's  success  de- 
pends much  on  the  size  of  his  audience ;  and  he  is 
under  no  inconsiderable  temptation  to  secure  hearers 
by  novelty  of  doctrine. 

The  professor  is  chosen  for  his  merit  as  a  special- 
ist ;  he  attracts  hearers  by  his  fame  as  a  specialist ; 
his  rank  is  estimated  according  to  the  extent  of  the 
additions  he  has  made  to  knowledge  as  a  specialist ; 
his  ambition  for  scholarly  renown  leads  him  to  seek 
perpetually  to  find  or  invent  some  new  thing  as  a 
specialist. 

Competition  for  hearers  is  intensely  keen  at  times 
under  the  operation  of  the  peculiar  system  of  the  uni- 
versity lectures,  supported  largely  by  the  fees  paid 
by  students  who  voluntarily  subscribe  to  hear  certain 
courses. 

There  is  rivalry  between  the  professors  of  the  three 
different  orders  —  regular,  extraordinary,  and  candi- 
date. The  Privat  Docent  of  a  German  university  is 
really  a  candidate  professor,  and  one  of  his  offices  is 
to  keep  the  regular  professors  strenuously  wakeful 
by  competition. 

This  rivalry  is  intensified  by  the  custom  in  Ger- 
many of  assembling  in  circles  of  instructors  at  the 
universities  always  a  majority  of  the  brilliant  men  of 
learning  of  the  whole  country.  In  England  one  may 
count  among  those  in  the  last  fifty  years  distinguished 


240  APPENDIX. 

for  learning,  at  least  a  score  who  had  no  connection 
with  universities  ;  but  in  Germany  one  can  find  in 
that  period  hardly  any  such.  Macaulay,  Carlyle, 
Mill,  Grote,  like  our  own  Prescott  and  Irving,  never 
were  professors  in  a  college.  But  in  Germany  if  any 
learned  person  has  anything  to  say,  he  is  usually  pro- 
vided by  the  government  with  a  chance  to  say  it  in 
lectures  to  students  at  some  university  centre. 

Undoubtedly  the  German  universities,  on  all  top- 
ics within  their  range,  have  at  present  more  power 
than  the  German  nobility  to  set  the  fashions  of  pub- 
lic thought. 

No  one  can  enter  the  civil  service  or  a  learned 
profession  in  Germany,  except  through  the  gate  of  a 
state  examination,  at  the  close  of  a  university  course 
of  study.  The  secret  of  the  national  power  of  the 
German  universities  is  in  this  close  connection  with 
the  state.  "  The  university,"  says  Bismarck,  "  ex- 
ists for  imperial  purposes."  The  American  and  the 
English  universities  do  not  rest  on  state  preparatory 
schools,  or  end  in  the  state  service.  The  German 
university  rests  on  the  state  gymnasiums,  and  ends 
in  the  civil  service  and  learned  professions. ^ 

America  governs  by  majorities,  England  by  an 
aristocracy,  Germany  by  universities. 

All  life  in  Prussia  has  an  organization  so  utterly 
different  from  that  in  New  England,  that  although 
in    Edinburgh,    Glasgow,    Oxford,    or    London,    an 

1  "  The  French  university  has  no  liberty,  and  the  English  universi- 
ties have  no  science;  the  German  universities  have  both."  — Arnold, 
Professor  Matthew,  Higher  Schools  and  Universities  in  Germany,  p. 
166.  London.  1874.  Compare,  also.  Hart,  German  Universities. 
New  York.     1875. 


APPENDIX.  241 

American  feels  himself  yet  hardly  out  of  America, 
he  will  not  have  that  feeling  in  Germany,  not  even 
in  the  highest  places  of  learning.  Modern  German 
society  is  a  spiritual  landscape,  with  stagnant  flats 
and  reedy  marshes  extensive  as  those  of  the  Baltic 
provinces  themselves  ;  but  also  with  wide  tracts 
thrown  up,  like  South  Germany,  into  Thuringian 
hills  and  Saxon  Switzerlands,  or  even  into  Alpine 
peaks,  on  which  day  strikes  first  and  lingers  longest. 
Examined  more  closely,  however,  the  novelties  which 
surprise  an  American  are  seen  to  be  arranged  in  a 
most  definite  order.  Prussian  society  consists  of 
these  seven  parts  :  the  king,  the  civil  service,  the 
army,  the  universities,  the  nobility,  the  tradesmen, 
the  peasants.  I  assign  the  universities  a  rank  as  a 
class,  and  that  rank  next  higher  than  the  nobility ; 
for  such  is  now,  according  to  the  best  German  critics, 
their  relative  position.^  Acting  in  the  eye  of  the 
nation,  and  on  this  elevated  stage  of  public  respect, 
German  professors  are  stimulated  as  no  other  univer- 
sity teachers  in  the  world  are,  both  to  excellence  and 
to  rivalry. 

I  find  in  these  circumstances  the  explanation  of 
the  fact  that  the  German  universities  are  the  best 

1  "After  the  Reformation  nearly  all  eminent  men  in  Germany  — 
poets,  philosophers,  and  historians  —  belonged  to  the  Protestant 
party,  and  resided  chiefly  at  the  universities.  The  universities  were 
what  the  monasteries  had  been  under  Charlemagne,  the  castles  under 
Frederick  Barbarossa  —  the  centres  of  gravitation  for  the  intellectual 
and  political  life  of  the  country.  .  .  .  The  intellectual  sceptre  of 
Germany  was  wielded  by  a  new  nobility  .  .  .  that  had  its  castles  in 
the  universities."  —  Miiller,  Professor  Max,  German  Classics,  Pref- 
ace, xxvi. 

16 


242  APPENDIX. 

now  in  existence,  and  also  of  tlie  circumstance  that 
among  the  multitude  of  their  productions  they  have 
given  to  the  public  some  most  wild  and  perishable 
systems  of  thought.^ 

Yin.    RISE  AND   EALL   OF  PHILOSOPHICAL  SYSTEMS. 

Complete  or  partial  overthrow  of  many  celebrated 
schools  in  philosophy  on  which  theology  had  un- 
wisely been  made  to  depend,  is  a  recent  cause  of  the 
power  of  rationalism  in  Germany,  especially  of  the 
later  materialistic  phases  of  unbelief,  which  sneer  at 
metaphysics  as  an  impossible  science.  Never  since 
Plato  and  Aristotle  has  so  much  metaphysical  ability 
been  displayed  as  by  Kant,  Fichte,  Schelling,  and 
Hegel ;  but  in  Germany  Fichte  and  Schelling  are 
obsolete ;  Hegel,  obsolescent ;  Kant,  only,  has  foun- 
dations upon  which  this  century  dares  to  build. 

A  Herbart,  a  Beneke,  a  Rothe,  a  Trendelenburg,  a 
Schopenhauer  have  come  and  gone ;  but,  for  twenty- 
five  years  no  commanding  system  of  philosophy  has 
arisen  in  a  land  which  in  philosophical  gifts  possesses 
the  primacy  of  the  world.  A  return  to  Aristotle 
and  Kant  has  distinguished  the  later  German  meta- 
physics. To-day,  in  the  hands  of  a  Kuno  Fischer, 
the  history  of  philosophy  is  made  to  attract  almost 

1  "Professorial  knight-errantry  still  waits  for  its  Cervantes.  No- 
where have  the  objects  of  learning  been  so  completely  sacrificed  to 
the  means  of  learning  ;  nowhere  has  that  Dulcinca,  —  knowledge  for 
its  own  sake,  —  with  her  dark  veil  and  her  barren  heart,  numbered  so 
many  admirers  ;  nowhere  have  so  many  windmills  been  fought,  and 
so  many  real  enemies  left  unhurt,  as  in  Germany,  particularly  during 
the  last  two  centuries." — Miiller,  Professor  Max,  German  Classics, 
Preface,  xxvii. 


APPENDIX.  243 

as  much  attention  as  philosophy  itself  ;  ^  and  in  those 
of  a  Hermann  Lotze,-  metaphj^sics  and  physics  are 
jointed  together  as  the  opposing  ribs  of  a  new  vessel, 
which,  perhaps,  is  destined  to  endure  the  shock  of 
wind  and  wave  where  fleets  ribbed  with  metaphysics 
only  went  down,  even  with  Schellings,  Fichtes,  and 
Hegels  at  the  helm.  But  neither  Lotze  nor  Fischer 
pretends  to  undertake,  what  was  the  joy  of  older 
admirals,  the  circumnavigation  of  the  yet  uncircum- 
navigated  globe  of  philosophy.  These  giants,  among 
costly  wrecks,  pace  to  and  fro  sadly  on  the  ocean 
shore.  They  do  not  set  sail ;  and  yet  they  perform 
for  thought  an  incalculable  service,  by  keeping  the 
world  in  view  of  the  limitless  horizons.  MeauAvhile, 
out  of  sight  of  the  sea,  in  the  marshy  interior  of  a 
grovelling  materialism,  a  Moleschott  and  a  Carl  Vogt 
can  assert  that  there  is  no  ocean ;  and  even  the  pygmy 
Biichner,  from  lack  of  height  of  outlook,  through 
twenty  editions  of  a  shallow  book,  can  proclaim  the 
impossibility  of  both  metaphysics  and  religion. 

IX.     DOCTRINAL   UNREST   OF   THE   AGE. 

The  doctrinal  unrest  of  the  age  in  most,  from  the 
acquisition  of  new  facts  in  many,  departments  of 
thought,  is  a  chief  force  in  all  modern  history,  and 
has  been  exceedingly  efiicient  among  the  causes  of 
German  rationalism.  Nearly  every  other  branch  of 
human  inquiry  besides  theology  has  been  supplied 
with  a  new  method  and  new  materials  within  a  cen- 
tury ;  and  it  was  neither  to  be  expected  nor  desired 

1  Geschichte  der  neueren  PhUosophie,  6  Baude. 

2  Mikrokosmos,  2  Baude.     Leipsig.     1872. 


244  APPENDIX. 

that  scholars  would  not  seek  a  new  method  for  the 
latter  science ;  and  it  was  to  be  expected,  though  not 
desired,  that  when  they  could  not  find  copious  new 
materials  for  it,  they  would  invent  them.  Really 
new  materials,  however,  have  been  brought  to  the- 
ology in  the  last  century  from  the  department  of  ex- 
egetical  research.  An  age  of  new  truths  and  facts 
is  necessarily  a  period  of  unrest  as  to  old  ones.  Al- 
though ultimately  it  may  be  found  that  the  old  and 
the  new  agree,  acquisition  of  fresh  materials  for  be- 
lief, and  the  crystallization  of  those  materials  around 
ancient  beliefs,  are  processes  which  do  not  succeed 
each  other  without  an  intervening  space  of  investi- 
gation and  uncertainty.  It  is  upon  precisely  these 
intervening  spaces  in  history  that  skepticism  has 
seized  as  battle-fields,  only  to  lose  them  one  by  one, 
in  a  long  line  of  defeats  reaching  now  through 
eighteen  centuries.  But  there  never  was  a  more 
important  intervening  space  of  this  sort  than  the 
last  age  in  Germany,  except  the  first  age  of  Chris- 
tianity in  Asia  and  Europe. 

X.     STATE   AID   TO   RATIONALISTIC    SECTS. 

State  aid  to  rationalistic  churches  I  class  among 
the  causes  that  have  given  rationalism  power  to 
make  a  noise  in  Germany.  If  a  majority  in  a  church 
at  Heidelberg,  for  instance,  vote  for  a  rationalistic 
preacher,  they  can  have  him,  and  yet  retain  state 
aid.  In  America,  under  the  voluntary  system,  ra- 
tionalistic organizations  soon  disband,  for  they  have 
not  earnestness  enough  to  pay  their  own  exj^enses. 
But,  in  Germany,  loaves  and  fishes  keep  them  to- 


APPENDIX.  245 

gether  under  the  endlessly  vicious  practical  arrange- 
ments of  the  state  churches. 

There  are  three  methods  of  arranging  the  relations 
of  church  and  state :  separation,  or  the  American 
plan ;  exclusive  establishment  of  one  confession,  or 
the  English  plan ;  concurrent  establishment  of  sev- 
eral confessions,  or  the  German  plan.  Catholics, 
Lutherans,  and  Calvinists  had  equal  civil  rights  se- 
cured to  them  b}^  the  Peace  of  Westphalia.  Even 
in  Prussia,  Romanists  to-day  have  larger  gifts  from 
the  public  treasury  than  Protestants.  Confessional 
equality,  a  great  watchword,  having  in  it  the  ago- 
nies and  blisses  of  German  religious  life  for  cen- 
turies, is  a  cry  never  hypocritically  uttered  by  the 
lips  of  Prussia. 

But,  although  dissenters  from  the  three  recognized 
confessions  have  had  no  formal  help  from  the  state, 
it  has  been  the  theory  of  each  establishment  tbat 
the  whole  population  must  be  baptized.  Until  very 
lately,  every  family,  believing  or  unbelieving,  was 
obliged  to  cause  its  children  to  profess  faith  and  pass 
the  rite  of  confirmation,  or  incur  for  the  children  the 
gravest  civil  disabilities.  Thus,  in  practice,  all  dis- 
senters have  been  really  within,  and  not  without,  the 
church.  In  many  of  the  smaller  principalities,  indi- 
vidual churches  have  become  predominantly  ration- 
alistic, and  yet  have  retained  their  income  from  the 
state.^ 

1  "  Half,  at  least,  of  the  destructive  power  of  European  infidelity 
in  past  generations  has  been  due  to  the  presence  of  the  party  within, 
instead  of  without,  the  church."  —  President  Warren,  of  the  Boston 
University,  Evangelical  Alliance  Report,  p.  253.     New  York.     1873. 


246  APPENDIX. 

XI.    CATHOLICISM  IN   SOUTH  GERIMANY. 

Catholicism,  covering  all  South  Germany,  and 
stimulated  to  act  the  part  of  mere  reactionary  Ro- 
manism by  influences  from  beyond  the  Alps  and  the 
Rhine,  I  rank  as  a  powerful  cause  of  German  ration- 
alism, for  it  has  prevented  half  the  German  people 
from  seeing  what  a  church  can  accomplish ;  made  the 
lives  of  vast  peasant  populations  a  prolonged  child- 
hood ;  disgusted  scholars  by  its  absurdities  of  doc- 
trine ;  resisted  the  progress  of  the  nation  toward 
Protestant  unity ;  and  seeks  now  to  destroy  an  em- 
pire whose  power  is  the  best  guaranty  of  both  peace 
and  progress  in  Europe. 

Pope  Boniface  wrote  to  Philip  the  Fair  of  France : 
"  Boniface  to  Philip,  greeting :  Know  thou,  that  thou 
art  subject  to  us  both  in  spiritual  and  temporal 
things."  The  king  replied :  "  Philip  to  Boniface, 
little  or  no  greeting :  Know  thou,  O  supreme  fool, 
that  in  temporal  things  we  are  not  subject  to  any 
one."  Such  would  now  be  the  answer  of  America 
or  England  or  Scotland  to  similar  pretensions  ;  such 
is  to-day  the  answer  of  Germany.  If  necessary,  this 
answer  would  be  given  by  Great  Britain  or  the 
United  States  through  the  cannon's  mouth  ;  if  nec- 
essary, it  will  so  be  given  by  the  German  Empire. 
Ultramontanism  against  nationality  is  the  simple 
issue  between  the  pope  and  Bismarck.  First  a  Cath- 
olic and  then  a  citizen,  or  first  a  citizen  and  then  a 
Catholic,  is  tne  ancient  question  Berlin  debates  with 
Rome.  In  the  long  struggle  between  the  civil  and 
ecclesiastical   power,  England   stood   three   hundred 


APPENDIX.  247 

years  ago  where  Germany  stands  to-day.  By  the 
celebrated  bill  passed  in  1581  "to  restrain  her  majes- 
ty's subjects  in  their  due  obedience,"  parliament  as- 
serted in  principle  all  that  now  causes  outcry  against 
the  sternness  of  Prussia  toward  Romanists  of  tlie 
disloyal  type.  Summarizing  with  fairness  the  his- 
tory of  Ultramontanism  for  five  hundred  years,  Bis- 
marck said  once  to  the  Prussian  parliament  that  "  the 
goal  which,  like  the  Frenchman's  dream  of  an  un- 
broken Rhine  boundary,  floats  before  the  papal  party 
—  the  programme  which,  in  the  time  of  the  medise- 
val  emperors,  was  near  its  realization  —  is  the  sub- 
jection  of  the  civil  power  to  the  ecclesiastical."  ^ 
William  I.  writes  to  Pius  IX.  that  Catholic  citizens 
of  Germany,  at  the  instigation  of  Ultramontanism, 
conspire  against  the  unity  and  peace  of  the  emj)ire. 
Pius  IX.  replies  :  "  Every  one  who  has  been  baptized 
belongs  to  the  pope  in  some  way  or  other."  ^ 

Henry  IV.,  in  smock  and  barefoot,  stood  three 
days  in  the  snow  before  the  palace  of  Pope  Hilde- 
brand  at  Canossa,  imploring  absolution.  In  1872 
Bismarck  said  of  the  German  Empire :  "  We  are  not 
going  to  Canossa,  spiritually  or  physically."  But  it 
was  by  barely  a  majority  of  one  that  great,  rich,  Ro- 
mish Bavaria  was  brought  to  the  aid  of  the  rest  of 
Germany  in  the  war  of  self-defence  against  Napoleon 
III.  France  echoed  the  scorn  of  Philip  the  Fair  in 
his  famous  answer  of  contempt  to  the  pope  ;  she  is 
to-day  governed  by  Ultramontanism.  Canossa  is 
not  the  goal  of  the  centuries ;    but  the  feet  of  one 

1  Bismarck,  Speech  in  the  Prussian  House  of  Lords,  March  10,  1873. 

2  Letter  of  Pius  IX.  to  the  Emperor  William,  Aug.  7,  1873. 


248  APPENDIX. 

hundred  and  eighty  millions  of  the  human  race  yet 
tread  its  snows. 

XII.      SUJVIMAEY  OF   CAUSES. 
These,  then,  in    my  judgment,  are  the  ten  chief 
causes  of  the  power  of  skepticism  in  Germany  in  the 
last  century. 

1.  Fragmentary  presentations  of  Christianity  in 
the  spirit  of  earnestness  without  science,  or  of  sci- 
ence without  earnestness. 

2.  Maladroit  organization  of  the  German  state 
church  ;  first,  in  the  use  of  compulsory  confessions 
of  faith  at  the  confirmation  legally  required  of  the 
whole  population,  whether  believing  or  unbelieving  ; 
and  secondly,  in  the  absence  of  the  familiar  Ameri- 
can and  English  distinction  between  the  converted 
and  the  unconverted,  and  in  a  consequently  stagnant 
church  life. 

3.  Moral,  intellectual,  and  social  contagion  from 
France. 

4.  The  demoralization  arising  in  Germany  from  its 
having  been  the  principal  theatre  of  European  wars. 

5.  Support  by  the  church  of  a  popularly  odious 
absolutism  in  politics. 

6.  German  university  life  in  its  peculiar  limita- 
tions and  stimulations  of  free  discussion. 

7.  The  overthrow  of  several  celebrated  German 
systems  of  philosophy. 

8.  The  doctrinal  unrest  of  the  age  in  most,  from 
the  acquisition  of  new  facts  in  many,  departments  of 
thought. 

9.  State  aid  to  rationalistic  organizations. 


APPENDIX.  249 

10.  Roman  Catholicism  in  South  Germany. 

I  am  aware  how  difficult  it  is  to  present  in  proper 
perspective  a  complicated  array  of  causes  and  effects 
extending  through  an  hundred  years;  and  that,  for 
patriotic  and  political  reasons,  even  candid  German 
writers  do  not  always  arrive  at  a  frank  admission  of 
the  power  of  some  of  these  causes.  But  whoever  has 
read  between  the  lines  in  European  history,  and  list- 
ened to  the  whispered  as  well  as  to  the  spoken  and 
printed  thought  of  Germany,  will  recognize  in  this 
analysis  her  own  unpublished  judgment  of  herself. 
On  such  authority,  it  is  well  to  be  able  to  assure  the 
superficial  skeptic,  that,  in  the  most  learned  land  on 
the  globe,  rationalism  had  several  other  sources  of  in- 
fluence besides  its  own  intellectual  merits.^  In  view 
of  these  enumerated  causes,  it  is  not  surprising,  nor 
to  a  scholar's  faith  is  it  intellectually  annoying,  that 
skepticism  has  had  power  in  Germany,  and  that  it 
yet  retains  power  among  the  slightly  educated. 

Xm.    EMPTY   RATIONALISTIC   AND    CROWDED   EVAN- 
GELICAL  LECTURE -ROOMS. 

In  the  German  universities  the  incontrovertible 
fact  is  that  the  rationalistic  lecture-rooms  are  now 
empty,  and  the  evangelical  crowded ;  while  fifty  or 
eighty  years  ago  the  rationalistic  were  crowded,  and 
the  evangelical  empty. 

Lord  Bacon  says  that  the  best  materials  for  proph- 

1  As  was  to  be  expected,  one  of  the  places  in  Boston  Avhere  infor- 
mation on  the  decline  of  rationalism  in  the  German  universities  ap- 
pears to  be  needed,  is  the  Radical  Club,  yet  misled  by  Hegel,  on 
whom  Transcendentalism  built  so  arrogantly  and  incautiously  forty 
years  ago. 


250  APPENDIX. 

ecy  are  the  unforced  tendencies  of  educated  young 
men.  Take  up  any  German  year  book,  look  at  the 
statistics  of  the  universities,  ascertain  which  way  the 
drift  of  educated  youth  is  now  setting  in  the  most 
learned  circles  of  the  world,  and  you  have  before  you 
no  unimportant  sign  of  the  times. 

But,  in  looking  for  this,  you  come  upon  another 
sign  no  less  important,  nameW,  that  the  leading  uni- 
versities of  Germany  are  now,  and  eighty  years  ago 
were  not,  under  predominant  evangelical  influence. 

Berlin,  beyond  doubt  the  University  of  first  impor- 
tance, and  hallowed  by  the  great  names  of  Schleier- 
macher,  Is  eander,  and  Trendelenburg,  is  theologically 
led  by  Dorner,  Semisch,  Steinmeyer,  and  Twesten 

—  staunch  defenders  of  evangelical  faith. 

Leipzig,  with  Kahnis  and  Luthardt  and  Delitzsch 

—  and  lately  with  Tischendorf  —  among  her  profess- 
ors, contests  with  Berlin  for  the  first  place,  and  in 
the  opinion  of  many  deserves  that  rank,  and  is  the 
renowned  traditional  seat  of  an  orthodoxy  which  at 
some  points  New  England  and  Scotland  —  agreeing 
in  the  main  with  the  present  attitude  of  Berlin  — 
might  consider  excessive. 

Halle,  whose  theology  permeates  Germany,  both 
from  the  University  and  from  Francke's  famous  Wai- 
senhaus,  has  in  it  Tholuck,  and  Kostlin,  and  Kah- 
ler,  and  Guericke,  and  Jacobi,  and  Schlottmann,  and 
Julius  Miiller,  known  throughout  the  world  as  antag- 
onists, and  as  successful  antagonists,  of  the  subtlest 
forms  of  skepticism.  It  is  not  uncommon  to  hear 
Julius  Miiller  spoken  of  as  the  ablest  theologian  of 
Germany. 


APPENDIX.  251 

Tiibingen  itself,  where  Strauss  put  forth  one  of 
his  earlier  works,  and  Baur  founded  a  theological 
party,  has  had  in  it  for  years  no  Tubingen  school, 
but,  through  the  professorships  of  Beck,  Palmer, 
and  Landerer,  is  permeated  by  vigorous  evangelical 
influences. 

Heidelberg,  under  tlie  theological  leadership  of 
Schenkel,  Hitzig,  Gass,  and  Holtzmann,  is  to-day  the 
only  prominent  University  of  Germany  given  to 
views  that  can  be  called  rationalistic. 

Now,  which  of  these  institutions  is  most  patronized 
by  German  theological  students  ?  Halle  and  Berlin 
may  be  compared,  in  a  general  way,  as  to  their  the- 
ology, with  Andover  and  New  Haven ;  Leipzig,  with 
Princeton  ;  and  Heidelberg,  v/ith  the  Unitarian  por- 
tion of  Cambridge. 

I  found  Dorner's,  Miiller's,  and  Tholuck's  lecture- 
rooms  crowded,  and  Schenkel's  empty.  In  1872-73 
there  were  but  twenty-four  German  theological  stu- 
dents at  Heidelberg ;  and  I  have  heard  Schenkel 
often,  and  never  saw  more  than  nine,  eight,  or  seven 
students  in  his  lecture-room.  Against  twenty-four 
German  theological  students  at  Heidelberg,  there 
are  one  hundred  and  thirty -two  at  Leipzig,  two 
hundred  and  fifty-seven  at  Halle,  two  hundred  and 
thirty-nine  at  Berlin.  But,  counting  both  the  native 
and  the  foreign  theological  students  in  these  institu- 
tions, the  whole  number  at  rationalistic  Heidelberg 
is  thirty -four;  at  evangelical  Halle,  two  hundred 
and  eighty-two  ;  at  evangelical  Berlin,  two  hundred 
and  eighty  ;  at  hyper-evangelical  Leipzig,  four  hun- 
dred and  twelve.^ 

1  Meyer,  Deutsches  Jahrhuch.     Erster  Jahrgang,  p.  1002. 


252  APPENDIX. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  German  students 
often  change  universities,  as  occasionally  American 
students  change  theological  schools,  —  passing  one 
period  in  one  and  another  in  another,  according  to 
the  attractions  of  different  professors.  It  is  imma- 
terial to  the  German  student  where  he  hears  lec- 
tures, provided  he  is  prepared  to  pass  with  credit 
the  severe  final  examinations.  When  a  professor  is 
called  from  one  university  to  another,  a  large  num- 
ber of  his  hearers  often  follow  him.  Thus  it  is  a 
fair  test  of  the  direction  of  the  drift  of  educated 
youth  in  Germany,  to  point  to  the  fact  that  they 
give  their  patronage  to  evangelical,  rather  than  to 
rationalistic,  professors,  and  this  in  the  overwhelm- 
ing proportion  of  ten  to  one. 

XIV.     TESTIMONY    OF    THOLUCK,    DORNEE,     CHRIST- 
LIEB,    SCHWARZ,    AND   KAHNIS. 

"  By  far,  by  far,"  was  Professor  Tholuck's  con- 
stant answer,  when  asked  by  foreign  students  if  or- 
thodoxy is  not  stronger  in  Prussia  than  fifty  or  eighty 
years  ago. 

In  1826,  at  Plalle,  all  the  students  except  five,  who 
were  the  only  ones  that  believed  in  the  Deity  of  our 
Lord,  and  all  the  professors  of  the  University  united 
in  a  petition  to  the  government  against  Tholuck's 
appointment  to  a  professorship  there,  and  the  oppo- 
sition rested  solely  on  the  ground  of  his  evangelical 
belief.i  The  students  at  Tiibingen,  not  far  from  the 
same  date,  ceremoniously  burned  the  Bible.    "  When 

1  Tholuck,  Lf'tter  to  the  New  York  Meeting  of  the  Evangelical  Alli- 
ance.    Report,  1873. 


APPENDIX.  253 

I  came  to  Halle,"  said  Professor  Tholiick  to  me  once, 
as  he  walked  up  and  down  that  famous,  long,  vine- 
clad  arbor  in  his  garden  where  his  personal  inter- 
views with  German  and  foreign  students  have  ex- 
erted an  influence  felt  in  two  hemispheres,  "  I  could 
go  twenty  miles  across  the  country  and  not  once  find 
what,  to  use  an  English  word,  is  called  an  experi- 
mental Christian.  I  was  very  unpopular.  I  was 
subjected  to  annoyance,  even  in  my  lecture-room,  on 
account  of  my  evangelical  belief."  "  His  adversaries 
are  bold  and  cunning.  A  baptism  of  fire  awaits  him 
at  Halle,"  wrote  Frederick  Perthes  of  the  young  pro- 
fessor, in  1826.1 

Contrast '  these  murky  threats  of  Tholuck's  morn- 
ing with  the  clear  sky  of  his  westering  sun.  In  De- 
cember, 1870,  he  had  completed  so  much  of  a  half 
century  of  work  at  the  University  of  Halle  that 
three  days  were  given  by  his  friends  to  the  celebra- 
tion of  the  event.  There  were  social  gatherings  and 
suppers  and  speeches  at  the  hotels.  All  the  halls 
and  staircases  of  Tholuck's  residence  were  crowded 
with  guests.  The  Emperor  William  sent  to  him  the 
Star  of  the  Red  Eagle.  Court  preacher  Hoffmann 
brought  to  him  the  salutations  of  the  ecclesiastical 
council  as  to  a  veritable  church  father  of  the  nine- 
teenth century.  The  various  universities  of  Ger- 
many were  represented  by  their  ablest  professors. 
Pastors  of  different  cities  sent  delegations.  A  letter 
to  Tholuck  was  received  signed  by  theologians  at 
that  hour  in  the  army  before  Paris.  An  immense 
torch-light  procession  of  students  filled  a  night  with 
Luther's  hymn  :  — 

1  Perthes,  Memoirs,  vol.  ii.  p.  268. 


254  APPENDIX. 

"  Ein  feste  Burg  ist  unser  Gott.*' 

"No  one  can  deny,"  Professor  Tholuck  would  say 
to  me  repeatedly,  "  that  since  the  death  of  Frederick 
the  Great,  or  the  French  Revolution,  or  the  opening 
of  tbe  century,  or  even  since  fifty  or  forty  years  ago, 
there  has  been  a  great  reaction  in  Germany  against 
infidelity  and  rationalism. 

^'  You  are  right  in  pointing  to  the  impotence  of 
the  edict  issued  in  favor  of  orthodoxy  by  Frederick 
William  II.  on  the  death  of  Frederick  the  Great,  as 
proof  that  it  has  not  been  the  favorable  attitude  of 
the  state  towards  orthodoxy  that  has  caused  the  re- 
action. Frederick  the  Great  had  no  influence  to  pro- 
mote skepticism  in  the  lower  and  middle,  but  he  did 
mischief  among  the  upper  classes. 

"Frederick  William  III.  and  Frederick  William 
IV.  were  favorable  to  orthodoxy;  and  William  I., 
onr  emperor,  is  thoroughly  so.  Much  depends  on 
the  attitude  of  the  court  at  Berlin  in  respect  to  the 
churches.  In  Weimar,  however,  a  preacher  without 
belief  in  the  Deity  of  Christ,  and  with  denial  of 
miracles,  may  be  connected  with  the  state  church. 
In  respect  to  orthodoxy,  Weimar  is  one  of  the  most 
lax  of  all  the  provinces  of  Germany.  It  would  prob- 
ably not  be  true  to  say  that  in  the  small  territory 
of  Weimar,  infidelity  is  less  powerful  than  fifty 
years  ago,  although  that  is  most  certainly  the  case 
in  Prussia. 

"  Hagenbach  has  written  a  '  History  of  the  Rise, 
Progress,  and  Decline  of  German  Rationalism,'  and 
his  book  I  put  first  into  the  hands  of  foreign  students 
coming  to   Germany  and  asking  information  from 


APPENDIX.  255 

me.  I  am  myself  writing  a  work  on  the  same  sub- 
ject. 

"As  to  men  of  science  and  professors  in  tlie  phil- 
osophical faculties  with  us,  they  are  often  unin- 
formed concerning  theology  ;  but  materialism  makes 
much  less  noise  in  Germany  than  in  England.  If 
a  man  is  a  materialist,  we  Germans  think  he  is  not 
educated." 

On  account  of  their  having  little  freedom  to  dis- 
cuss political,  German  professors  are  intensely  jealous 
of  their  liberty  to  discuss  literary,  scientific,  phil- 
osophical, and  theological  topics.  Whoever  has 
breathed  the  quickening  oxygen  of  the  atmosphere 
of  a  German  university  will  understand  very  well 
that  it  is  by  no  means  the  changed  attitude  of  the 
state  toward  orthodoxy  that  has  brought  about  the 
reaction  against  rationalism.  Skepticism  had  its 
greatest  power  under  Frederick  William  II.  and 
Frederick  William  III.,  who  opposed,  as  much  as 
Frederick  the  Great  had  favored,  rationalism.  In 
Germany  it  is  almost  a  proverb  that  the  soul  of  a 
university  is  made  up  of  Lehr  Freiheit  and  Le^m 
Freiheit. 

"  No,"  said  Professor  Dorner,  in  his  study  at  Ber- 
lin, when  I  mentioned  Professor  Tholuck's  opinion  of 
Weimar  ;  "  rationalism  even  in  Weimar  and  Thu- 
ringia  was  quite  as  strong  fifty  years  ago  as  it  now 
is." 

••'That  is  nothing"  (^Das  ist  mchts},  he  remarked 
emphatically,  and  added  no  more,  speaking  of  the 
rationalism  of  Renan. 

"  The  writers  who  discuss  materialism,"  he  said, 


256  APPENDIX. 

"are  in  Germany  more  anti-clogmatic  than  ethical. 
As  to  the  rationalists  themselves,  we  have  more  who 
agree  with  Channing  than  with  Parker. 

"  The  mass  of  our  preachers  are  genuine  believers, 
but  among  the  populace  one  can  sometimes  find  infi- 
delity. The  mass  of  our  divines  are  convinced  ;  but 
they  are  too  contentious.  In  Prussia,  unbelief  is 
much  weaker  than  fifty  years  ago,  or  in  the  time  of 
Frederick  the  Great.  Then  rationalism  was  the  loyal 
theology.  Most  certainly,  most  certainly,  rational- 
ism in  Germany,  taken  as  a  whole,  is  plainly  and  by 
far  weaker  than  fifty  years  ago." 

"  The  proposal,"  says  Professor  Christlieb,  "  to 
implore  the  divine  blessing  and  assistance  on  the  de- 
liberations of  the  Frankfort  parliament  in  1848  was 
received  with  shouts  of  derisive  laughter."  "  For 
the  last  thirty  years,"  he  writes,  "in  spite  of  all 
hostilities,  a  truly  Christian  science  has  begun  vic- 
toriously to  lead  the  way,  by  new  and  deeper  ex- 
egetical  researches ;  by  historical  investigation ;  by 
pointing  out  the  remarkable  harmony  existing  be- 
tween many  new  archseological,  ethnological,  and 
scientific  discoveries.  In  the  pulpit  of  by  far  the 
greater  number  of  the  German  churches,  and  in  the 
theological  faculties  of  most  of  the  universities,  it 
has  so  completely  driven  unbelief  out  of  the  field, 
that  the  latter  has  been  compelled  to  retire,  in  a 
great  measure,  into  the  divinity  schools  of  adjacent 
countries,  —  Switzerland,  France,  Holland,  Hungary. 
When  compared  with  these  and  other  countries,  Ger- 
many shows  that  unbelief  has  a  greater  tendency 
to  insinuate  itself  into,  and  to  make  its  permanent 


APPENDIX.  257 

abode  among,  half-educated,  ratlier  than  thoroughly- 
educated,  communities."  ^ 

"  So  much  is  to  be  confessed,"  says  court  preacher 
Schwartz  of  Gotha,  author  of  the  acutest  ^  of  the 
histories  of  recent  theology,  "  Schleiermacher's  work 
has  been  incomparably  more  enduring,  and  quietly 
and  inwardly  transforming,  than  Hegel's.  Schleier- 
macher's influences  yet  advance,  while  those  of  He- 
gel are  exhausted  and  dead."  ^ 

"  It  is  spring,"  said  Professor  Kahnis  of  Leipzig, 
in  1874.  "  The  period  since  the  wars  of  liberation 
represents  the  conflict  of  the  newly  quickened  heat 
of  the  German  mind  with  the  masses  of  snow  and 
ice  of  the  Aufklarmig.  Until  to-day  the  conflict  en- 
dures ;  but  ever  mightier  grows  the  sun,  ever  weaker 
the  winter."  * 

This  testimony  of  German  professors  to  the  fact  of 
the  decline  of  skepticism  in  the  German  universities 
I  might  make  voluminous ;  but  it  is  enough  to  show 
the  accord  of  confidential  and  colloquial  with  printed 
testimony,  and  the  agreement  of  five  such  author- 
ities as  Tholuck,  Dorner,  Christlieb,  Schwarz,  and 
Kahnis. 

1  Christlieb,  Professor  Theodore,  Modern  Doubt  and  Christian  Be- 
lief, pp.  18,  63. 

2  Farrar,  A.  G.,  Critical  History  of  Free  Thought,  Bampton  Lec- 
tures, Preface,  xxv. 

3  Schwarz,  Dr.  Carl,  Oberhofprediger  und  Oberconsistorialrath  zu 
Gotha,  Zur  Geschichte  der  neuesten  Theologie,  Vierte  Auflage,  25.  Leip- 
zig.    1869. 

4  Kahnis,  Professor  K.  F.  A.,  Der  innere  Gang  des  deutschen  Pro- 
testantismus,  Dritte  Ausgabe.  Zweiter  Theil,  162.  Leipzig.  1874. 
These  four  are  the  best  recent  works  on  German  Rationalism. 

X7 


258  APPENDIX. 

XV.     SEPARATION   OF   CHURCH  AND   STATE. 

Both  the  Prussian  Constitution  and  the  funda- 
mental statutes  of  the  German  Empire  alike  declare 
that  the  evangelical  church  shall  be  free  to  manage 
its  own  internal  affairs.  Schleiermacher  himself,  in 
1808,  drew  up  for  the  king  a  sketch  of  a  church  con- 
stitution which  foreshadowed  much  that  is  now  be- 
coming law.  The  cabinet  order  of  Frederick  Wil- 
liam III.  gathered,  in  1817,  the  Lutheran  and  Re- 
formed churches  into  an  evangelical  union.  The 
contest  with  Romanism  has  now  obliged  Prussia  to 
give  to  that  union  as  much  independence  of  the  state 
as  Romanists  enjoy.  The  eight  provinces  of  the  old 
Prussian  kingdom,  that  is  to  say,  nearly  all  the  Prot- 
estants of  North  Germany,  are  being  drawn  together 
under  one  church  constitution,  of  which  the  principle 
is  essentially  Presbyterian.  The  effects  are  likely  to 
prove  inauspicious  to  rationalism,  which  has  steadily 
resisted  the  abolition  of  the  bureaucratic  manage- 
ment of  the  ecclesiastical  and  religious  life  of  the 
nation. 

Church  and  state  in  Germany  are  slowly  separat- 
ing; the  bureaucratic  tutelage  and  bondage  of  the 
church  are  becoming  things  of  the  past  ;  a  deter- 
mined purpose  is  exhibited,  on  the  part  of  both  gov- 
ernment and  scholars,  to  call  out  a  regulated  relig- 
ious activity  among  the  masses  of  the  people.  As 
the  German  peasantry  and  middle  class  have  never 
been  taught  to  give  money  freely  for  religious  organ- 
izations managed  by  themselves  ;  as  the  rationalism 
outgrown  in  the  universities  has  only  too  much  power 


APPENDIX.  259 

with  the  populace,  especially  in  the  large  towns  ;  as 
Sabbath -schools  and  prayer -meetings,  and  all  the 
machinery  of  the  voluntary  system  in  church  affairs, 
are  in  Germany  conspicuous  by  their  absence,  the  sep- 
aration of  church  and  state  in  the  empire  will  not 
occur  without  many  most  painful  temporary  disad- 
vantages.^ The  poorer  clergy  will  starve  for  a  time, 
and  there  will  be  wide  tracts  of  baptized  torpor  and 
unbaptized  indifference  and  paganism  in  the  religious 
life  of  the  lower  classes.  Ultimately,  however,  when 
the  dangers  of  allowing  religious  marshes  to  go  un- 
drained  have  become  sufficiently  evident  and  alarm- 
ing, and  the  impotence  of  rationalism  to  drain  mala- 
rious soil  has  received  adequate  illustration,  German 
sagacity  and  honesty  will  cause  the  stagnant  fens  of 
German  church  life  to  wake  with  currents  which,  it 
is  to  be  hoped,  will  one  day  make  of  its  green,  sedgy, 
and  pestilential  pools  a  clear,  flashing,  and  brimming 
river. 

XVI.  GEEMAN  PEBIACY  IN  EUROPE. 

Immense  commercial,  political,  and  moral  advan- 
tages accrue  to  Germany  from  her  unity,  sought  in 
agony  for  two  hundred  years.     Schiller  did  not  hesi- 

1  "  In  many  sections  of  Germany,  especially  the  northern  regions, 
where  Lutheranism  prevails,  the  congregations  are  almost  as  passive, 
dependent,  and  incapable  of  self-government  as  in  the  Roman  Catho- 
lic Church,  and  Luther's  complaint  of  the  want  of  material  for  elders 
and  deacons  must  be  repeated  in  this  nineteenth  century  after  Protes- 
tantism has  been  in  operation  for  more  than  three  hundred  years. 
The  people  are  only  expected  to  be  ruled,  and  hence  they  have  no 
chance  to  learn  individual  and  congregational  self-government,  which 
must  be  gradually  acquired,  like  every  other  art."  —  Schaff,  Professor 
Philip,  Germany,  its  Universities,  Theology,  and  Religion,  pp.  112,  113- 


260  APPENDIX. 

tate  to  say  that  Europe  was  sufficiently  compensated 
for  the  horrors  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War  by  an  in- 
creased sense  of  the  interdependence  and  need  of 
union  among  its  nations. ^  At  Sadowa,  in  1866,  at 
the  close  of  the  battle  Avhich  gave  to  Central  Europe 
Prussian  and  Protestant,  instead  of  Austrian  and 
Romish  leadership,  and  ended  a  struggle  which  Fred- 
erick the  Great  began,  the  sun  came  forth  from  un- 
der heavy  clouds  in  the  low  west,  and  the  united 
armies  of  North  and  South  Germany,  struck  by  the 
omen,  gathered  around  their  commander  and  sang :  — 

"Now  all  thank  God!" 

In  that  late  hour  the  Reformation  first  became  polit- 
ically an  assured  success  in  the  land  of  its  birth. 
Sadowa  is  Ge'rmany's  best  hope  of  internal,  Sedan 
her  best  hope  of  external,  freedom  from  war. 

But  whenever  Germany,  beaten  down  almost  con- 
stantly under  the  hoofs  of  military  strife,  has  had 
time  to  catch  breath,  she  has  shown  a  recuperative 
power  that  has  astonished  all  Europe.  In  the  thirty 
years  after  the  battle  of  Waterloo,  her  soil  was  not 
once  touched  by  war,  or  by  the  tread  of  foreign 
troops.  Her  historians  assign  to  that  period  her  first 
real  recovery  from  the  effects  of  the  Thirty  Years' 
War.      In   1818,  bold,  wise,  indefatigable    Prussia 

1  "  Aber  Europa  ging  ununterdruckt  und  frei  aus  diesem  fiirch 
terlichen  Krieg,  in  welchem  es  sich  zum  erstenmal  als  eine  zusammen- 
gehangende  Staatengesellschaft  erkannt  hatte ;  nud  diese  Theilneh- 
rnnng  der  Staaten  an  einander,  welche  sich  in  diesem  Krieg  eigent- 
lich  erst  bildete,  ware  allein  schon  Gewinn  geniig,  den  Weltbiirger 
mit  seinem  Schrecken  zu  versohnen."  —  Schiller,  Geschichte  des 
dreissigjdhrigen  Kriegs,  SdmmtUche  Werke,  v.  2. 


APPENDIX.  261 

abolished  all  duties  upon  goods  in  transit  tlirough  its 
own  territories.  For  commercial  purposes  Germany- 
became  a  unit  in  1828.  Even  under  the  imperfect 
league  of  Zoll  Verein  her  navy  was  the  third  in  ex- 
tent in  the  world.  Agriculture  grew  prosperous. 
Capitals  of  princes  were  not  the  only  cities  distin- 
guished for  wealth  and  culture.  At  the  mere  dawn  of 
that  national  unity  and  peace,  of  which  the  full  sun- 
rise was  at  Sedan,  commerce  in  Germany  awoke  from 
the  dead.  The  rapid  growth  of  Cologne,  Breslau, 
Magdeburg,  Nuremberg,  and  Berlin  amazed  Vienna 
and  wounded  Paris.  The  overshadowing  and  swift- 
ly-increasing prosperity  of  Germany  and  her  ap- 
proaches to  political  unity  drew  upon  her  the  attack 
of  Napoleon  III.  Sedan  opened  to  Victor  Emmanuel, 
Rome ;  to  the  angels  Peace  and  Union,  entrance  on 
German  soil ;  to  Napoleon,  his  grave ;  to  contagion 
from  France,  an  antidote.  At  last  Germany  has  mil- 
itary and  political,  as  well  as  intellectual  primacy  in 
Europe.  Versailles  leads  her  fashions  no  more.  Vol- 
taire is  not  asked  to  be  her  tutor. 

On  those  very  grounds  of  Sans-Souci,  where  Freder- 
ick the  Great  and  Voltaire  had  called  out  to  the  cul- 
ture of  Europe,  "  Ecrasez  Tinfame  !  "  King  William 
and  his  queen  lately  entertained  an  Evangelical  Al- 
liance gathered  from  the  Indus,  the  Nile,  the  Dan- 
ube, the  Rhine,  the  Thames,  and  the  Mississippi. 

XVn.    BAtJR,   STRAUSS,   AND   EENAN. 

But  who  does  not  know  the  history  of  the  de- 
feat of  skeptical  school  after  skeptical  school  on  the 
rationalistic  side  of  the  field  of  exegetical  research  ? 


262  APPENDIX. 

The  naturalistic  theory  was  swallowed  by  the  myth- 
ical theory,  and  the  mythical  by  the  tendency  the- 
ory, and  the  tendency  by  the  legendary  theory,  and 
each  of  the  four  by  time.  Strauss  laughs  at  Paukis, 
Baur  at  Strauss,  Renan  at  Baur,  the  hour-glass  at 
all.  ^'  Under  his  guidance,"  says  Strauss  of  Paulus, 
"  we  tumble  into  the  mire  ;  and  assuredly  dross,  not 
gold,  is  the  issue  to  which  his  method  of  interpreta- 
tion generally  leads."  ^  ''  Up  to  the  present  day," 
says  Baur  of  Strauss,  '^  the  mythical  theory  has  been 
rejected  by  every  man  of  education."  ^  "  Insuffi- 
cient," says  Renan  of  Baur,  "is  what  he  leaves  exist- 
ing of  the  gospels  to  account  for  the  faith  of  the 
apostles."  ^  He  makes  the  Pauline  and  Petrine  fac- 
tions account  for  the  religion,  and  the  religion  ac- 
count for  the  Pauline  and  Petrine  factions.  "  Criti- 
cism has  run  all  to  leaves,"  said  Strauss,  in  his  bitter 
disappointment  at  the  failure  of  his  final  volume.^ 
'  Appropriately  was  there  carried  on  Richter's  cofiin 
to  his  grave  a  manuscript  of  his  last  work  —  a  discus- 
sion in  proof  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul;  appro- 

1  Strauss,  New  L{fe  of  Jesus  (Eng.  trans.),  p.  18. 

2  Baur,  Krit.  Untersuch.  uber  die  canonischen  Evangel.,  121,  40-71. 

3  Kenan,  hude  d'Hist.  Rel.,  168. 

*  "  Baur  acknowledged  the  four  leading  epistles  of  Paul  to  be  gen- 
uine, and  to  have  been  written  before  a.  d.  60.  Noav  this  admission 
is  fatal  to  the  sister  theory  of  Strauss ;  for  these  epistles  prove  that 
Jesus  was  not  an  ordinary  man,  around  whose  idolized  memory  his 
disciples,  in  the  course  of  a  century  or  so,  AVTeathed  mythical  fictions, 
not  knowing  wliat  they  did,  but  tliat  the  culminating  facts  of  his  life, 
the  leading  traits  of  his  character  as  given  in  our  so-called  mythical 
gospels,  were  familiar  to  the  Christian  world  within  twenty-five  years 
after  his  death."  —  Thayer,  Professor  J.  Henry,  Boston  Lectures,  p. 
372.     1871. 


APPENDIX.  263 

priately  might  there  have  been  carried  on  Strauss's 
coffin  to  his  grave  his  last  work,  restating  his  mythical 
theory,  if  only  that  theory  had  not,  as  every  scholar 
knows,  died  and  been  buried  before  its  author.^ 

XVin.    SUMMAEY   OF   PROOFS . 

Among  the  proofs,  then,  that  skepticism  in  Ger- 
many is  declining  in  power  with  those  whose  special 
study  is  theology,  are  the  facts  :  — 

1.  That  in  the  German  universities  the  rationalis- 
tic lecture-rooms  are  now  empty,  and  the  evangelical 
crowded ;  while  fifty  or  eighty  years  ago  the  ration- 
alistic were  crowded,  and  the  evangelical  empty. 

2.  That  histories  of  the  rise,  progress,  and  decline 
of  German  rationalism  have  been  appearing  for  the 

1  Zeller,  the  admiring  biographer  of  Strauss,  says  :  "  As  a  point  of 
weakness  in  his  last  volume,  The  Old  and  Neio  Faith,  he  designated 
in  one  of  his  letters  the  beginning  of  the  fourth  section  on  morals. 
'  Here,'  he  writes,  *  immediately  after  the  appearance  of  the  work, 
a  couple  of  solid  beams  have  still  to  be  inserted,  and  if  you  could 
supply  me  with  a  few  oak  or  even  pine  stems,  you  would  deserve  my 
sincere  thanks.'  The  public  discussions  of  the  work  were  almost 
without  exception  disapproving.  .  .  .  Average  theological  liberalism 
pressed  forward  eagerly  to  renounce  all  compromising  association  with 
Strauss  after  he  published  this  last  statement  of  his  mythical  theory. 
He  was  deeply  grieved,  and  it  required  some  days  before  he  could  re- 
gain his  calm  composure."  —  Zeller,  Professor  Eduard,  of  the  Heidel- 
berg University,  Strauss  in  his  Life  and  Writings  (Eng.  trans.),  pp. 
135,  141,  143.  London.  1874.  "The  idea  of  men  writing  mythic 
histories  between  the  time  of  Livy  and  Tacitus,  and  St.  Paul  mistak- 
ing such  for  realities  !  "  —  Bunsen,  Arnold's  Life,  Letter  cxliv.  Strauss 
"  bezeichnet  nicht  sowohl  eine  Epoche  als  eine  Krise,  nicht  sowohl 
einen  Anfangs-als  einen  Schlusspunkt.  .  .  .  Die  Einseitigkeit  des 
Strauss'schen  Geistes,  wclche  bei  allem  Glanz  seiner  Detail  Kritik  in 
den  neuesten  Werke  "besonders  auffallend  hervortritt,  ist  ein  doppeltes 
Vacat,  ein  Mangel  an  geschichtlichem  Blick  und  religiosem  Sinn.'* 
' —  Schwarz,  Geschichte  der  neuesten  Theologie,  3,  557. 


264  APPENDIX. 

last  fifteen  years  in  the  most  learned  portions  of  the 
literature  of  Germany. 

3.  That  such  teachers  as  Tholuck,  Julius  Miiller, 
Dorner,  Twesten,  Ullmann,  Lange,  Rothe,  and  Tisch- 
endorf,  most  of  whom  began  their  professorships  with 
great  unpopularity  in  their  universities,  on  account 
of  their  opposition  to  rationalistic  views,  are  now  par- 
ticularly honored  on  that  very  account. 

4.  That  every  prominent  German  university,  ex- 
cept Heidelberg,  is  now  under  predominant  evangel- 
ical influences,  and  that  Heidelberg  is  nearly  empty 
of  theological  students. 

5.  That  the  attitude  of  the  general  government  at 
Berlin  has  destroyed  the  force  of  many  of  the  polit- 
ical causes  of  disaffection  with  the  state  church. 

6.  That  the  victory  at  Sedan  and  the  achievement 
of  German  unity  diminish  the  chances  of  demorali- 
zation from  European  wars  and  by  contagion  from 
France. 

7.  That  in  the  field  of  exegetical  research,  while 
rationalism  has  caused  the  discovery  of  many  new 
facts  and  the  adoption  of  a  new  method,  the  natu- 
ralistic theory  by  Paulus,  the  mythical  theor}^  by 
Strauss,  the  tendency  theory  by  Baur,  and  the  leg- 
endary by  Renan,  have  been  so  antagonistic  to  each 
other  as  to  be  successively  outgrown  both  by  Christ- 
ian and  by  rationalistic  scholarship. 

XIX.    RESULTS   OF   SCIENTIFIC   CRITICISM. 

Beyond  controversy  are  many  great  results  of  theo- 
logical discussions  in  Germany  for  the  last  hundred 
years.     Nor  have  the  attacks  of  rationalism  been  an 


APPENDIX.  265 

unmixed  evil.  A  doctrine  of  the  intuitions,  basis  of 
all  ethical  and  metaphysical  research,  has  been  es- 
tablished by  Kant.  A  doctrine  of  conscience,  grow- 
ing up  from  the  Kantian  theory  of  the  intuitions,  is 
acquiring  a  height  of  outlook,  from  which  the  far- 
sighted  already  descry  the  scientific  inference  of  the 
necessity  of  an  atonement.  A  doctrine  of  sin,  built 
on  the  doctrine  of  conscience,  has  been  made  by  Julius 
Miiller  to  unlock  all  theology. 

A  doctrine  of  the  personality  of  God  has  been 
founded  upon  the  Kantian  analysis  of  the  intuitions, 
and  has  already  supplied  the  chief  deficiencies  of 
Kant's  own  system,  besides  undermining  the  panthe- 
ism of  Fichte,  Schelling,  and  Hegel. 

A  system  of  criticism  has  grown  up  in  relation  to 
everything  historical  in  Christianity,  and  exegetical 
research  has  been  placed  upon  a  thoroughly  scientific 
basis. 

A  vindication  of  the  historical  evidence  of  the  su- 
pernatural has  followed  from  an  application  of  the 
new  system  of  criticism. 

A  series  of  discoveries  has  been  made,  illuminat- 
ing at  important  points  the  records  of  the  origin  of 
Christianity,  and  carrying  back  the  date  of  the  chief 
documents  a  full  half  of  a  century,  narrowing  by  so 
much  the  previously  too  narrow  space  used  by  the 
skeptical  theory  to  account  for  the  growth  of  myths 
and  legends,  and  so  shutting  the  colossal  shears  of 
chronology  upon  the  latest  deftly-woven  web  of  his- 
torical doubt. ^ 

1  "  Twenty  years  ago  it  used  to  be  thought  that  the  earliest  proof 
of  the  reception  of  New  Testament  writings  as  of  similar  authority 


266  APPENDIX. 

A  Life  of  Christ  is  now  the  most  natural  form  in 
which  belief,  resting  upon  a  system  of  criticism  com- 
mon to  sacred  and  secular  history,  expresses  and  de- 
fends its  credence. 

XX.    CHEISTIAN   TREND   OF   THE   CENTURIES. 

Whoever  ascertains  the  trend  of  the  historic  con- 
stellations through  long  periods  obtains  a  glimpse  of 
the  hem  of  the  garment  of  Almighty  God.  What 
Providence  does,  it  from  the  first  intends.  A  sifting 
of  Christianity  has  taken  place  in  this  last  age  by  a 
prolonged  contest  of  unbelief  with  faith,  each  armed 
with  the  best  Damascus  blades  the  world  furnishes 
either  to-day ;  and  the  result  has  been  a  defeat  of 
doubt  on  all  central  points.  It  is,  therefore,  now  cer- 
tain that  it  was  divinely  intended  that  there  should 

to  the  Old  was  to  be  found  about  the  year  180  ;  but  recent  discov- 
eries furnish  indubitable  evidence  that  even  the  gospels  had  acquired 
such  a  reception  more  than  half  a  century  earlier.  .  .  .  These  discov- 
eries, by  carrying  back  for  half  a  century  the  indubitable  traces  of 
the  gospels,  prove  such  theories  as  those  of  Baur,  Strauss,  and  Ke- 
nan, to  be  pure  theories,  .  .  .  not  only  unsujjported  by  the  facts  of 
history,  but  in  opposition  to  the  facts  of  history.  ...  As  a  sect  in 
biblical  criticism,  the  Tubingen  school  has  perished.  Its  history,  even, 
has  been  written,  and  that  in  more  than  one  tongue." — Thayer,  Pro- 
fessor J.  Henry,  Criticism  Confirmatory  of  the  Gospels.  Boston  Lec- 
tures, pp.  363,  364,  371.  1871.  "  Schenkel,  Renan,  Keim,  Weiz- 
siicker,  and  others  equally  removed  from  the  traditional  views,  unite 
in  insisting  that  the  fourth  Gospel  could  not  have  appeared  later  than 
a  few  years  after  the  beginning  of  the  second  century.  They  found 
this  opinion  on  irrefutable  grounds.  But  if  this  be  so,  the  key-stone 
falls  from  the  arch.  The  course  of  development  which  the  Tiibingeu 
critics  describe,  extending  for  a  century  from  the  death  of  Paul,  and 
requiring  this  time  for  its  accomplishment,  is  swept  away.  There  is 
no  room  for  it."  —  Fisher,  Professor  George  P.,  Essays  on  the  Super- 
natural Origin  of  Christianity,  xxxviii.  (new  cd.)  1870. 


APPENDIX.  267 

be  a  sifting  of  Christianity  in  this  last  age,  and  that 
a  defeat  of  doubt  should  be  the  result.  Prolonged 
historic  tendencies  are  God  allowing  portions  of  his 
plan  of  the  government  of  the  world  to  become  hu- 
manly comprehensible. 

When  the  completion  of  a  cycle  of  events  reveals 
what  the  plan  of  the  cycle  was  from  the  first,  it 
behooves  men,  coordinating  latest  with  earliest  cy- 
cles, to  ascertain  the  trend  of  the  movements  in  the 
sky ;  and  to  gaze,  more  solemnly  than  upon  the  stars 
themselves,  upon  that  Form  loftier  than  the  stars, 
which  passes  by  in  the  darkness  behind  them,  its  out- 
lines not  wholly  visible,  but  the  direction  not  un- 
known in  which  it  is  moving  the  constellations. 

I  commend  this  German  theological  battle-field  to 
the  timid  and  the  hopeful  who  go  out  to  walk  and 
meditate  in  the  world's  eventide.  Goethe  could  say 
that  the  only  real,  and  the  deepest  theme  of  the 
world's  and  of  man's  history,  to  which  all  other  sub- 
jects are  subordinate,  is  the  conflict  between  faith 
and  unbelief.^  We  are  the  ancients,  as  Bacon  said. 
But  the  inscription  written  by  history,  which  is  God's 
finger  and  no  accident,  before  the  sad  eyes  of  the 
bruised  and  staggering  ages,  on  the  trophy  erected 
after  the  severest  intellectual  battle  of  this  oldest 
and  newest  of  the  centuries,  is.  Via  Crucis,  Via  Lu- 
cis  ! 

I  do  not  respect  any  proposition  merely  because  it 
is  ancient,  or  in  the  mouths  of  majorities.  But  I  do 
respect  propositions  that  have  seen  honest  and  pro- 
tracted battle,  but  not  defeat.    The  test  of  the  sound- 

1  Goethe,  Werke,  Abhandlungen  zum  west&stlichen  Divan. 


268  APPENDIX. 

ness  of  scholarship  is  that  it  should  contend  with 
scholarship,  not  once  or  twice,  but  century  after  cen- 
tury, and  come  out  crowned.  But  the  intellectual 
supremacy  of  Christianity  in  the  nineteenth  century 
is  not  a  novelty.  There  are  other  battle-fields  worth 
yisiting  by  those  who  walk  and  meditate,  on  which 
Christian  trophies  stand,  more  important,  as  marks 
of  the  world's  agonies  and  advances,  than  any  that 
ever  Greek  erected  for  victory  at  Salamis  or  Mara- 
thon. I  lean  on  church  history.  I  go  to  its  battle- 
fields and  lie  down  on  them.  They  are  places  of  spir- 
itual rest.  Gazing  on  their  horizon,  I  see  no  narrow 
prospect,  but  a  breadth  of  nineteen  hundred  victo- 
rious years.  Looking  into  the  sky,  as  I  lie  there,  I 
hear  sometimes  the  anthem  :  As  it  was  in  the  be- 
ginning, is  now,  and  ever  shall  be,  world  without  end. 
I  obtain  glimpses  of  a  heaven  opened ;  and  behold  a 
white  horse,  and  He  that  sits  on  him  is  called  the 
Word  of  God,  King  of  kings,  and  Lord  of  lords.  He 
is  clothed  in  a  vesture  dipped  in  blood  ;  but  his  eyes 
are  as  a  flame  of  fire,  and  on  his  head  are  many 
crowns. 


APPENDIX  11. 


THEODORE   CHRISTLIEB    AND   GERMAN    CHURCH 
LIFE. 

Tholuck,  Julius  Miiller,  and  Hermann  Lotze 
have  passed  into  the  Unseen  World,  and  Germany 
seems  lonely  and  empty  without  them.  Dorner  and 
Kahnis,  Delitzsch  and  Lange  are  now  aged  men,  and 
although  their  westering  suns  are  yet  the  chief  glory 
of  the  German  theological  sky,  they  each  draw  near 
to  the  rim  of  the  horizon. 

Among  the  comparatively  young  men  who  are 
likely  yet  to  be  organizing  and  redemptive  forces  in 
German  theology  and  church  life,  no  one  more  thor- 
oughly deserves  the  intellectual  confidence  and  the 
devout  prayers  of  Evangelical  Christendom  than 
Theodore  Christlieb,  of  Bonn.  He  was  born  March 
7,  1833,  at  Berkenfeld,  Wiirtemberg,  studied  the- 
ology at  Tiibingen,  and  has  been  professor  at  Bonn 
since  1868.  Besides  being  perhaps  the  most  incisive 
and  quickening  university  preacher  in  Germany,  and 
one  of  the  most  accomplished  Christian  apologists  of 
modern  times,  he  is  an  ecclesiastical  statesman,  with 
a  keen  sense  of  both  the  merits  and  the  defects  of 
German,    English,   and   American   church    systems, 


270  APPENDIX. 

and  an  evangelical  aggressive  reformer  who  has  not 
forgotten  how  to  get  on  his  knees. 

It  was  my  fortune,  on  the  1st  and  again  on  the 
7th  of  July,  1881,  to  attend  at  Bonn,  in  the  Scotch 
Presbyterian  Church,  what  Thomas  Chalmers  would 
have  called  a  Bible-meeting,  and  to  find  there  Pro- 
fessor Christlieb,  seated  in  front  of  the  pulpit,  with 
the  Rev.  Dr.  Graham,  the  pastor,  and  taking  large 
and  most  impressive  part  in  the  explanation  of  the 
Scriptures  and  in  prayer.  A  sight  like  this  can  be 
seen,  so  far  as  I  am  aware,  in  no  other  university 
town  of  Germany.  There  were  present  some  fifty 
or  sixty  persons,  of  whom  perhaps  twenty-five  were 
men,  including  in  their  number  several  German  and 
Scottish  theological  students,  but  not  participating 
personally  in  the  exercises.  This  weekly  meeting, 
of  which  the  exercises  are  wholly  in  German,  and 
which  is  held  in  a  Presbyterian  Church  founded 
here  by  incredible  labor  on  the  part  of  Dr.  Graham, 
represents  the  best  spiritual  culture  among  the  mem- 
bers of  the  Protestant  state  church  in  Bonn.  The 
size  of  the  assembly  from  week  to  week  is  attrib- 
utable chiefly  to  Professor  Christlieb's  regular  pres- 
ence in  it.  Except  that  laymen  were  not  urged  or 
even  invited  to  take  part,  the  service  which  I  at- 
tended resembled  a  New  England  prayer-meeting, 
led  by  a  pastor,  assisted  by  some  distinguished  pro- 
fessor of  theology,  in  a  college  town.  Professor 
Christlieb,  sitting  in  his  chair,  spoke  on  each  of  the 
two  occasions  for  fifteen  or  twenty  minutes  on  the 
passage  of  Scripture  containing  the  Seven  Epistles  to 
the  churches  of  Asia,  and  then  knelt  down  upon  the 


APPENDIX.  271 

bare  floor  and  offered  a  long,  fervent,  and  most  im- 
pressive prayer. 

Incredible  as  it  may  seem.  Professor  Christlieb's 
participation  in  this  devotional  meeting  finds  critics 
among  the  adherents  of  an  ossified  confessionalism 
in  the  German  state  churches.  Lukewarm  and  ar- 
rogant Broad  Church  preachers,  who  think  that  the 
baptism  of  infants  and  the  confirmation  of  boys  and 
girls  at  the  age  of  fourteen  in  the  establishment  are 
nearly  or  quite  saving  ordinances,  and  who  make 
little  or  no  distinction  between  the  converted  and 
the  unconverted  in  their  congregations,  are  naturally 
much  annoyed  by  the  emphasis  with  which  Professor 
Christlieb  teaches  the  doctrine  of  the  necessity  of 
the  New  Birth.  Loose  and  liberalistic  theoloQ-ical 
professors  look  coldly,  or  with  positive  aversion,  on 
this  gathering  of  a  few  devout  and  cultured  people 
in  Bonn,  and  deprecate  its  spiritual  earnestness  as 
divisive  and  pharisaical.  Preaching  which  makes  no 
effective  distinction  between  the  regenerate  and  the 
unregenerate  Professor  Christlieb  regards  as  the 
chief  curse  of  the  German  state  church,  and  he 
speaks  of  it  with  spiritual  horror,  as  flattering  souls 
to  perdition. 

It  is,  most  unhappily,  a  very  rare  thing  indeed 
for  theological  students  in  Germany  to  hold  prayer- 
meetings  among  themselves.  So  much  does  their 
spiritual  culture  suffer  neglect  in  the  torpid  congre- 
gations of  the  state  churches,  that  these  young  men, 
when  they  come  to  the  universities,  rarely  under- 
stand the  wisdom  of  the  proverb  "  Bene  oms^e  est 
bene  studuisse.''     It  was  Professor  Tholuck's  (and  it 


272  APPENDIX. 

is  also  Professor  Christlieb's)  constant  complaint, 
that,  while  German  theological  training  is  intellect- 
ually more  thorough  than  the  Scotch  or  American,  it 
is  spirituall}^  less  so.  Professor  Christlieb  evidently 
means  to  introduce,  by  personal  example,  a  higher 
wisdom.  It  is  one  sign  of  the  ghastly  inefficiency  of 
the  German  establishment  that  his  efforts  in  further- 
ance of  indispensable  spiritual  activity  in  the  church 
are  met  with  misapprehension  and  opposition.  He 
is  sometimes  accused  most  unjustly  of  being  more  an 
Englishman  or  an  American  in  his  ideas  of  church 
life  than  a  German. 

It  is  true  that  Professor  Christlieb  was  seven  years 
pastor  of  a  German  congregation  in  London,  and 
that  he  has  made  a  profound  study  of  the  best  and 
worst  traits  of  Scotch  and  American  churches.  The 
venerable  Dr.  Andrew  Bonar's  well-known  "  Life 
and  Labors  of  McCheyne,"  a  saintly  volume,  redo- 
lent of  the  richest  incense  that  ever  rose  from  the 
religious  altars  of  Scotland,  Professor  Christlieb  has 
caused  to  be  translated  into  German.  "  You  cut  me 
to  pieces,"  writes  an  honest  reader  of  this  book  to 
Professor  Christlieb.  "  In  my  seventieth  year,  I 
learn  from  McCheyne  and  from  Scotland  what  I 
ought  to  have  done  and  might  have  done  in  my 
German  parish." 

Professor  Christlieb  has  also  published  lately  a 
preface  to  a  German  translation  of  the  American  life 
of  President  Finney,  and  has  spoken  with  favor  of 
the  revival  lectures  of  this  theologian  and  great  evan- 
gelist. He  lias  been  invited  to  lecture  next  year  at 
Yale  and  Oberlin,  and  would  receive  an  overwhelm- 


APPENDIX.  273 

ing  welcome  in  America,  if  it  should  be  possible  for 
liim  to  visit  these  institutions.  His  work  on  ''  Mod- 
ern Doubt,"  and  his  remarkable  address  on  that 
theme  at  the  meeting  of  the  Evangelical  Alliance  in 
New  York,  in  1873,  have  given  him  multitudes  of 
readers  in  America  and  Great  Britain.  His  accom- 
plished wife  is  an  English  lady  by  birth.  Her  father, 
the  Rev.  J.  James  Weitbrecht,  was  a  German  cler- 
gyman in  connection  with  the  English  Establish- 
ment, and  her  mother,  Mrs.  Weitbrecht,  also  an 
English  lady,  is  a  highly  valued  writer,  and  noted 
in  London  for  her  zeal  in  various  forms  of  religious 
effort.  Professor  Christlieb's  elaborate  volume  on 
"  The  Life  and  Doctrine  of  John  Scotus  Erigena  " 
was  published  in  1860,  when  he  was  only  twent}^- 
seven  years  of  age,  and  obtained  for  him  the  degree 
of  doctor  of  divinity  from  Berlin  University.  This 
treatise  compares  the  system  of  Erigena  with  those  of 
subsequent  writers,  and  shows  great  learning ;  but  it 
exhibits  only  one  aspect  of  its  author's  many-sided 
sympathies  and  culture.  His  latest  work,  already 
translated  into  English,  Spanish,  Dutch,  and  Swed- 
ish, gives  a  comprehensive  view  of  Christian  mis- 
sions throughout  the  world  ;  and  a  recent  publication 
of  his,  which  he  calls  a  recess  study,  discusses  the 
atrocities  of  the  British  opium  trade  in  Burmah  and 
China.  It  is  true  that  Professor  Christlieb  is  perhaps 
better  acquainted  with  England,  Scotland,  and  Amer- 
ica than  any  other  German  theological  professor,  and 
thus  excels  his  contemporaries  of  his  own  country  in 
his  breadth  of  outlook.  It  is  not  true,  however,  that 
any  one  of  them  all  is  more  genuinely  German  or 

18 


274  APPENDIX. 

more  devoutly  attached  to  all  that  is  best  in  the  Ger- 
man church  than  he.  His  ideas  concerning  the  meth- 
ods by  which  German  church  life  may  be  improved 
are  precisely  those  which  Scotland,  England,  and 
Ameiica  would  indorse,  and  yet  he  is  thoroughly 
German  in  his  whole  conception  of  the  scientific  side 
of  theological  training. 

Professor  Christlieb  does  not  fear  the  rivalry  of 
any  new  school  of  rationalistic  thought,  arising  or 
yet  to  arise,  among  the  younger  theological  profes- 
sors of  Germany.  Evangelical  teachers  here  have 
seen  the  rise  and  fall  of  so  many  schools  of  ration- 
alism that  alarm  is  not  easily  excited  in  educated 
minds  by  novelties  of  method  in  the  attacks  made  on 
central  Christian  doctrines.  Professor  Christlieb's 
father  was.  trained  in  theology  at  Tiibingen,  when 
infidel  influences  in  that  University  were  at  their 
height.  All  the  members  of  his  class  were  gradu- 
ated as  confirmed  rationalists.  They  nevertheless 
found  employment  in  the  state  church.  Little  by 
little  the  progress  of  their  studies  and  their  practical 
experience  of  the  work  of  the  ministry  brought 
most  of  them  back  to  evangelical  views  of  Chris- 
tianity, and  at  last  all  of  them  returned  to  the  faith 
which  for  eighteen  hundred  years  has  seen  battle, 
but  not  defeat.  As  a  sect  in  biblical  criticism,  the 
Tiibingen  school  has  perished.  The  mythical  the- 
ory as  to  the  origin  of  Christianity  is  exploded. 
Strauss  is  no  longer  heard  of  here  in  discussions  with 
infidels.  Ilis  day,  and  even  that  of  Schenkel  and 
Renan,  have  gone  by.  Tlie  most  dangerous  tendency 
of  the  newer  form  of  rationalism  connects  itself  with 


APPENDIX.  275 

tlie  philosophy  of  evohition  and  the  speculations  of 
materialistic  physicists.  Ernst  Haeckel,  however, 
has  no  important  following  in  Germany.  The  best, 
though  not  the  noisiest  naturalists  here,  as  in  Scot- 
land and  England,  are  unapologetic  and  thorough 
theists.  On  the  side  of  historical  criticism  Wellhau- 
sen  and  Kuenen  represent  decidedly  erratic  tenden- 
cies, greatly  deplored,  and  yet  not  regarded  by  men 
like  Delitzsch,  Lange,  and  Dorner  as  destined  to 
exert  any  prolonged  influence.  Just  at  present  the 
views  of  Ritschl,  in  Gottingen,  are  attracting  atten- 
tion ;  but  he  does  not  command  the  confidence  of 
the  leaders  of  evangelical  thought,  and  some  of  his 
followers  are  proclaiming  what  Professor  Christlieb 
calls,  with  an  emphasis  of  intellectual  disdain,  "  mere 
shallow  Unitarianism." 

It  is  true  to-day,  as  it  has  been  for  the  last  fifteen 
or  twenty  years,  in  Germany  that  the  rationalistic 
theological  professors  attract  far  fewer  students  than 
the  evangelical.  According  to  the  "  Universitats  Kal- 
endar"  for  1880-81,  rationalistic  Heidelberg  has  only 
twenty-four  theological  students,  while  evangelical 
Berlin  has  230,  evangelical  Halle,  304,  and  hyper- 
evangelical  Leipzig,  437.  At  one  time,  recently,  Hei- 
delberg University  had  seven  theological  professors, 
all  rationalists,  and  only  seven  theological  students. 
Professor  Christlieb  assures  me  that  the  number  of 
theological  students  in  Germany  is  now  decidedly  on 
the  increase,  although  it  diminished  for  a  while  un- 
der the  operation  of  the  notorious  Falk  Laws,  now 
happily  superseded  in  large   part  by  the  better  ar- 


276  APPENDIX. 

rangements  of  his  successors.^  Falk  appointed  as 
teachers  in  the  gymnasia  veiy  many  thoroughgoing 
rationalists,  who  were  accustomed  to  sneer  at  any  of 
their  pupils  who  proposed  to  study  divinity,  and 
thus  did  their  utmost  to  diminish  the  number  of  the- 
ological students  in  the  universities.  Until  Andover 
and  Princeton  in  America  and  the  Free  Church 
theological  colleges  in  Scotland  added  a  fourth  year 
to  their  courses  of  study,  the  theological  training 
given  in  Germany  was  confessedly  superior  in  merely 
intellectual  thoroughness  to  that  of  any  other  por- 
tion of  the  world.  The  great  need  of  Germany  is 
such  spiritual  awakening  as  may  lead  to  aggressive 
church  life,  and  transform  her  university  training 
into  a  Pillar  of  Fire,  through  which  God  can  look 
and  trouble  the  hosts  of  his  enemies  and  take  off 
their  chariot- wheels. 

Bonn  on  the  Rhine,  July  8,  1881. 

1  The  highly  suggestive  work  entitled  Das  Universitdtsstudium  in 
Deutschland  wdhrend  der  letzten  50  Jalire,  by  Dr.  J.  Conrad,  profes- 
sor in  the  law  faculty  of  the  Halle  Unversity,  shows  that  in  the  last 
twenty -two  years,  or  from  1860  to  1882,  the  number  of  students  in  at- 
tendance on  all  the  faculties  of  the  German  universities  has  doubled. 
In  the  last  ten  years,  however,  or  from  1872  to  1882,  the  number  of 
students  in  attendance  on  the  Faculty  of  Evangelical  Theology  has 
doubled.  At  the  time  of  the  last  reports  (1884)  the  number  of  stu- 
dents in  this  faculty  was :  Leipzig,  638 ;  Halle,  488  ;  Berlin,  459 ; 
Tubingen,  366;  Erlangen,  305;  Gottingen,  197;  Konigsberg,  158; 
Griefswald,  129;  Jena,  127;  Breslau,  117;  Bonn,  109;  Kiel,  72; 
Strasburg,  72  ;  Giessen,  68 ;  Heidelberg,  54  ;  Rostock,  50.  About 
fifty  years  ago,  there  were  15.6  theological  students  to  every  100,000 
inhabitants  of  Germany;  ten  years  ago,  only  6.7;  in  1882,  10.5;  in 
1883,  over  11. 


APPENDIX  III. 


THE  NEW  HOUSE  AND  ITS  BATTLEMENT;  OR, 
THE  RELATIONS  OF  THE  TEMPERANCE  REFORM 
TO   CIVIL  LIBERTY  AND   CHURCH   LIFE. 

A  LECTURE   AT   THE    METROPOLITAN    TABERNACLE, 

LONDON,   FOR   THE  NATIONAL   TEMPERANCE 

LEAGUE,   MAY   1,  1881. 

"When  thoa  buildest  a  uew  house,  then  thou  shalt  make  a  battle- 
ment for  thy  roof,  that  thou  briug  not  blood  upou  thine  house,  if  any 
man  fall  from  thence."  —  Deuteronomy  xxii.  8. 

"It  is  good  neither  to  eat  flesh,  nor  to  diiuk  wine,  nor  anj-thing 
whereby  thy  brother  sturableth.  or  is  offended,  or  is  made  weak."  — 
Romans  xiv.  21. 

"I  have  led  you  forty  years  in  the  wilderness  :  j'our  clothes  are 
not  waxen  old  upon  you,  and  thy  shoe  is  not  waxen  old  upon  thy 
foot.  Ye  have  not  eaten  bread,  neither  have  ye  drunk  wine  or  strong 
drink  :  that  ye  might  know  that  I  am  the  Lord  your  God."  —  Deu- 
TEROXOMY  xxix.  5,  6. 

"  The  Lord  spake  unto  Aaron,  saying.  Do  not  drink  wine  nor  strong 
drink,  thou,  nor  thy  sons  with  thee,  when  ye  go  into  the  tabernacle  of 
the  congregation,  lest  ye  die:  it  shall  be  a  statute  for  ever  through- 
out your  generations :  and  that  ye  may  put  difference  between  holy 
and  unholy,  and  between  unclean  and  clean."  —  Leviticus  x.  8-10. 

Under  a  thoroughly  free  government,  the  exten- 
sion of  the  suffrage  to  ignorant  and  intemperate  pop- 
ulations inevitably  places  the  scoundrel  class  at  the 


278  APPENDIX. 

head  of  affairs.  A  drunken  people  cannot  be  a  free 
people.  Are  we  therefore  to  infer  that  free  gOYern- 
ments  are  so  dangerous  that  we  must  consider  them 
condemned  of  God's  Providence  even  in  these  late 
ages  of  the  Avorld  ?  Britons  and  Americans  are  not 
likely  to  be  of  that  opinion,  for  if  there  is  any  one 
thing  for  which  we  have  suffered  more  than  for  any 
other  outside  of  our  religion  itself,  it  is  civil  liberty, 
representative  government,  freedom  of  political  opin- 
ion. I  am  not  now  touching  at  all  upon  the  differ- 
ences between  American  and  British  civilization, 
but  I  am  asking  you  to  notice  that  on  both  sides 
of  the  Atlantic  we  are  free ;  all  of  us,  Britons  and 
Americans,  are  under  the  government  of  representa- 
tive institutions.  Evil  opinion  expressing  itself  by 
means  of  the  ballot  has  opportunity  to  do  harm  in 
Britain  and  America,  such  as  it  cannot  do  in  any 
other  countries  of  the  world  less  free.  By  as  much 
as  political  freedom  is  extended,  by  so  much,  drunk- 
enness amongst  voters  becomes  a  national  mischief, 
sometimes  threatening  the  very  life  of  representative 
institutions  themselves. 

This,  then,  is  the  new  house  we  are  building  in 
modern  days,  —  civil  liberty  under  representative  in- 
stitutions. What  is  the  proper  battlement  to  be 
placed  around  the  roof?  How  are  we  to  preserve 
this  mansion  from  blood-guiltiness?  How  are  Amer- 
icans and  Britons  to  solve  the  problem  they  have 
been  discussing  for  centuries,  —  the  question  how  a 
government  of  opinion  under  representative  institu- 
tions may  become  safe  and  worthy  of  the  blessing  of 
Almighty  God? 


APPENDIX.  279 

The  future  of  government  of  the  people  by  the 
people  and  for  the  people,  is  inseparably  bound  up 
with  the  cause  of  the  sobriety  of  the  peoj^le.  I  am 
not  about  to  deliver  a  secular  address,  but  as  I  speak 
here  to-day  as  an  American,  and  could  not  deliver  a 
British  address  if  I  were  to  try,  I  must  be  allowed 
to  say  that  Americans  have  made  up  their  minds 
that  the  safety  of  freedom  such  as  theirs  is  closely 
connected  with  the  spread  of  temperance  among  the 
voting  populations.  You  are  sometimes  told  that 
the  cause  which  I  am  to  defend  to-day  has  advanced 
further  in  the  United  States  than  in  these  crowded 
islands.  Possibly  that  is  the  case.  But  if  it  has 
grown  to  a  more  commanding  height  there  than  it 
has  yet  reached  here,  I  do  not  think  the  result  is  to 
be  accounted  for  by  saying  that  the  churches  are 
more  in  earnest  there  than  here,  or  that  American 
society  is  more  saturated  with  conscientiousness  or 
has  greater  sobriety  of  mind  than  yours.  I  make 
no  such  arrogant  or  futile  claim.  But  it  is  to  be 
claimed  that  Americans  would  suffer  more  under 
intemperance  among  voters,  and  especially  in  great 
cities,  than  you  would  suffer,  because  we  have  ex- 
tended the  franchise  further  than  you  have  done. 
It  is  not  unlimited  with  us,  but  it  is  very  extensive, 
and  we  have  built  this  house  of  civil  liberty  so  far 
up  that  we  perceive  with  distinctness  the  peril  of 
falling  over  the  edge  of  it,  and  s6  we  feel  convinced 
that  we  must  erect  a  battlement  to  j^reserve  us  from 
blood-guiltiness.  That  battlement  we  find  in  the 
temperance  cause.  National  safety  under  universal 
suffrage  depends  on  the  two  great  provisions  referred 


280  APPENDIX. 

to  in  these  parallel  texts,  a  nation  of  abstainers  —  a 
priesthood  of  abstainers. 

All  this,  you  say,  is  good  sense  concerning  Amer- 
ica, with  her  advanced  use  of  free  suffrage.  You 
admit  that  it  is  beyond  dispute  that,  under  the  insti- 
tutions which  prevail  on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlan- 
tic, an  intemperate  voting  class  cannot  be  endured. 
You  say  you  can  understand  very  well  why  it  is  that 
popular  sentiment  is  so  emphatic  in  this  matter  be- 
yond the  sea.  American  church  members  in  the 
Northern  States  do  not  easily  excuse  a  young  man  in 
the  pulpit  who  drinks  wine.  When  a  young  man  is 
passing  through  a  course  of  theological  study,  and  is 
about  to  enter  the  ministry,  and  is  known  to  carry 
the  Bible  in  one  hand  and  a  wine-glass  habitually 
used  in  the  other,  we  are  apt  to  refuse  him  support. 
We  are  not  equally  cautious  concerning  an  old  man 
in  the  pulpit,  but  there  are  so  many  young  men  com- 
ing forward  with  correct  habits  that  we  feel  that  it 
would  be  flying  in  the  face  of  Providence  to  take  a 
man  with  incorrect  habits  and  place  bim  before  the 
people  as  a  leader.  Public  sentiment  is  stern  on  the 
other  side  of  the  Atlantic  as  to  moderate  drinking 
amongst  ministers.  I  think  I  have  never  heard  of 
a  minister  falling  through  intemperance.  I  never 
heard  of  an  American  theological  professor  being 
deposed  from  his  chair  for  intemperance.  I  never 
knew  any  church  member  who  was  guilty  of  open 
or  secret  habits  of  intemperance.  In  the  Northern 
States  of  the  American  Union  we  do  not  count  the 
preacliers  who  are  total  abstainers,  but  those  who 
are  not. 


APPEND!^.  281 

You  have  been  told  over  and  over  again  that  the 
lady  who  was  the  wife  of  the  late  President  in 
America  turned  the  wine-glass  upside  down  in  the 
White  House.  In  that  act  she  had  the  support  of 
the  best  portion  of  public  sentiment  in  the  United 
States.  You  have  heard  of  a  general  who  led  the 
armies  of  the  North  in  the  Civil  War  who  had  been 
intemperate,  but  who  became  a  total  abstainer,  and 
who  to-day  in  all  companies  turns  the  wine-glass 
upside  down.  These  aie  characteristic  examples  of 
American  public  sentiment.  You  have  heard  of 
license  laws  carried  up  into  laws  of  local  option;  you 
have  heard  of  prohibitory  laws  on  the  other  side  of 
the  Atlantic  ;  you  have  heard  of  constitutional  pro- 
hibition there.  Why  do  I  mention  these  things  ? 
Simply  to  show  what  a  deep  undercurrent  of  fear 
and  anxiety  there  is  in  the  new  house  built  beyond 
the  sea  as  to  the  battlement  at  the  edge  of  the  roof. 
We  are  convinced  that  immense  political  dangers 
must  arise  in  an  intemperate  voting  population. 
Give  the  ballot  to  Whitechapel  and  Seven  Dials,  and 
ask  how  you  will  feel  about  the  cause  of  temperance. 
Let  the  slums  of  London  vote  as  those  of  New  York 
do,  —  let  the  government  of  London  come  under  the 
control  of  the  supporters  of  the  liquor  traffic  as  often 
as  that  of  New  York  has  done,  —  let  this  city  suffer 
as  much  in  her  municipal  institutions  from  the  ef- 
fects of  intemperance  as  New  York  has  done,  and  I 
believe  you  will  have  temperance  sentiment  here 
even  stronger  than  ours.  It  is  because  you  have 
not  extended  the  suffrage  as  far  as  we  have  done 
that  you  do  not  feel  the  terror  which  we  feel  on  the 


282  APPENDIX. 

other  side  of  the  Atlantic  in  view  of  intemperance 
among  the  masses. 

Although  it  is  clear  that  America  cannot  maintain 
her  institutions  peacefully  unless  she  is  very  stern 
concerning  intem^^erance,  you  do  not  perceive  that 
you  are  in  a  similar  case.  I  am  anxious  to  make  here 
this  afternoon  an  appeal  that  will  go  to  the  hearts 
of  men  of  business.  I  am  anxious  to  make  this  topic 
seem  of  practical  urgency  to  Britous.  One  of  the 
first  things  an  American  asks  w^hen  he  goes  abroad 
is,  How  far  are  the  people  allowed  to  protect  their 
own  interests  by  representative  institutions  ?  The 
broad  fact  is  that  most  of  the  Lower  Houses  in  the 
Parliamentary  bodies  of  Western  Europe  are  elected 
by  the  people.  I  will  not  discuss  your  Upper  Houses, 
and  other  hereditary  bodies.  Your  Lower  Houses 
of  legislation  are  very  many  of  them  representative 
institutions,  and  the  question  is,  whether  you  can 
bear  to  have  an  intemperate  voting  class  in  London, 
in  Paris,  in  Berlin,  or  any  other  large  cities.  I  took 
pains  to  inform  myself  the  other  day  as  to  the  con- 
dition of  the  Lower  Chambers,  and  here  are  some 
facts  which  show  the  need  of  a  battlement  around  the 
wall  of  the  new  house  which  Europe  is  building. 

Who  are  they  that  elect  the  Lower  Chamber  in 
France  ?  The  citizens  of  the  age  of  twenty-one. 
Who  are  the  electors  of  the  Lower  House  in  Aus- 
tria ?  Citizens  of  twenty-one  with  a  small  property 
qualification.  Who  in  Prussia?  Citizens  of  twenty- 
five,  classed  according  to  taxation.  In  Germany,  in 
the  individual  States,  what  determines  the  composi- 
tion of  the  Lower  Chambers?     Universal  suffrage. 


APPENDIX.  283 

In  Great  Britain  ?  In  towns  the  liouseholders  who 
pay  poor  rates,  or  in  counties  tenants  who  pay  a 
rental  of  X12.  In  Italy?  The  citizens  of  twenty- 
five  who  pay  £1  12s.  in  direct  taxes.  In  Greece? 
Manhood  suffrage.  In  Portugal?  Citizens  having 
an  income  of  .£22.  In  the  Netherlands  ?  Citizens 
who  pay  <£!  12s.  in  direct  taxes.  In  Switzerland? 
j\Iales  of  twenty.  In  Sweden  ?  Citizens  of  twenty- 
one  with  a  property  qualification  of  £b6.  Do  you 
need  the  battlement  around  your  new  house  ? 

You  say  I  have  no  right  to  introduce  these  topics 
here  ?  I  am  preaching  from  my  text,  and  I  tell  you 
as  Britons,  as  I  would  tell  Norwegians,  or  Swedes, 
or  Greeks,  or  Frenchmen,  or  Swiss,  or  Germans,  that 
the  day  is  coming  in  the  progress  of  civilization  when 
you  cannot  afford  to  have  an  intemperate  voting  class 
electing  your  Lower  Houses  of  legislation.  Civiliza- 
tion is  building  a  new  house,  and  although  I  am  not 
discussing  here  and  now  the  structure  of  your  Upper 
Houses  at  all,  —  it  may  be  ages  and  ages  before  you 
change  them,  —  still  you  believe  in  Lower  Houses 
grounded  essentially  on  the  votes  of  the  people.  You 
will  come  ultimately,  I  venture  to  predict,  to  the 
American  sensitiveness  in  this  matter  of  intemper- 
ance among  people  who  possess  political  power.  You 
will  do  this  as  a  matter  of  social  and  civil  prudence. 
You  will  be  forced  into  it  as  a  question  touching 
your  purses  and  throats.  The  day  is  coming  that 
will  move  the  foundations  of  many  of  our  present 
political  arrangements  out  of  their  places.  The  time 
has  arrived  when  it  ought  to  be  proclaimed  that  the 
minister  Avho  is  a  moderate  drinker,  the  church  mem- 


284  APPENDIX. 

ber  who  is  a  moderate  drinker,  the  professor  of  the- 
ology, or  any  conscientious  person  who  sets  a  ^vrong 
example  in  this  matter,  is  hindering  the  formation 
of  sound  public  sentiment  such  as  is  required  to 
secure  the  building  of  the  battlement  which  is  abso- 
lutely necessary  to  preserve  the  new  house  of  civili- 
zation from  blood-guiltiness. 

There  is  nothing  that  prevents  the  formation  of  a 
righteous  public  sentiment  on  the  matter  of  intem- 
perance so  much  as  the  example  of  the  educated  and 
the  conscientious  class.  My  appeal  is  to  this  class, 
and  I  proclaim,  in  the  name  of  the  blood-guiltiness 
we  are  likely  to  incur  without  this  battlement  on  our 
new  home,  the  necessity  of  building  the  battlement. 
It  may  appear  strange  to  you  that  on  God's  holy 
day  I  preach  these  truths,  and  bring  a  subject  of  this 
kind  before  the  people.  But  I  think  it  is  high  time 
this  topic  should  be  taken  into  the  closets  of  Europe 
as  I  know  it  has  been  taken  again  and  again  into 
the  places  of  secret  prayer  in  America.  Britons  will 
respect  my  appeal  on  this  point,  because  if  there  is 
anything  the  British  race  loves  it  is  representative 
institutions.  It  is  in  your  blood  to  love  them.  You 
are  likely  by  and  by  to  be  thrown  into  the  position 
of  Americans,  and  find  that  the  friends  of  repre- 
sentative institutions  must  either  throttle  their  love 
of  strong  drink  or  their  love  of  freedom.  That  is 
exactly  the  case  on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic. 

Send  up  a  balloon  from  Hyde  Park  on  a  clear  day, 
and  with  a  strong  glass  you  may  see  the  homes  of 
four  or  five  millions  of  men.  Send  up  a  balloon  from 
the  Central  Park  in  New  York  city  when  the  atmos- 


APPENDIX.  285 

phere  is  clear,  and  the  telescope  will  show  you  tlie 
daily  haunts  of  two  or  three  millions  of  men.  Mod- 
ern populations  are  massing  themselves  in  cities. 
The  misgovernment  of  great  towns  under  repre- 
sentative institutions  is  a  proverb.  The  faster  cities 
grow  the  more  rapidly  do  they  increase  the  need  of 
this  battlement  around  the  edge  of  the  roof  of  our 
new  house.  But  it  is  a  fact  that  on  both  sides  of 
the  sea  the  cities  are  growing  faster  than  the  rest  of 
the  population.  London  increases  faster  than  Eng- 
land, Berlin  than  German}^,  and  Paris  than  France ; 
as  well  as  New  York  city  than  the  State  of  New 
York,  Boston  than  the  State  of  Massachusetts,  and 
Chicago  than  the  State  of  Illinois.  In  the  United 
States  we  had  only  one  twenty-fifth  of  our  popula- 
tion in  cities  in  1800.  Now  we  have  more  than  one 
fifth.  Some  of  your  statesmen  look  across  the  At- 
lantic, and  say  that  there  is  not  one  American  city 
of  over  200,000  population  that  is  well  governed.  I 
repel  that  accusation.  Nevertheless,  there  is  too 
much  ground  for  it.  We  are  troubled  by  an  igno- 
rant and  intemperate  class,  derived  largely  from  im- 
migration from  all  lands.  We  have  learned  that  we 
must  educate  them,  and  make  them  sober,  and  that 
otherwise  in  great  cities  our  form  of  government 
will  be  a  farce.  In  Great  Britain  you  will  ultimately 
find  trouble  in  managing  your  cities,  unless  you  re- 
form the  perishing  and  dangerous  population.  Let 
Socialism  raise  a  great  conflagration  on  the  Conti- 
nent ;  let  Communism  and  Nihilism  acquire  any 
large  degrees  of  political  power  beyond  this  little 
thread  of  water  you  call  the  Straits  of  Dover ;  and, 


286  APPENDIX. 

although  I  believe  that  the  British  workingman  is 
one  of  the  most  sensible  of  human  beings,  and  one  of 
the  most  loj^al,  I  fear  that  some  spark  from  the  Conti- 
nental conflagration  might  start  an  unpleasant  flame 
on  this  side  of  the  Channel  in  your  crowded  great 
cities.  If  a  preacher  is  to  be  effective  in  reforming 
the  slums,  he  must  go  down  into  them,  as  Guthrie 
went  into  the  Cowgate  in  Edinburgh,  a  total  ab- 
stainer. If  you  do  not  awaken  to  the  cause  of  tem- 
perance in  its  depth  and  height,  you  will  have  polit- 
ical trouble  here,  and  America  will  be  only  one  step 
in  advance  of  you  in  walking  into  the  perils  of  the 
extension  of  the  suffrage  to  an  intemperate  popula- 
tion. I  am  endeavoring  to  touch  a  topic  not  often 
discussed.  This  relation  of  the  battlement  to  the 
roof  of  the  new  house  has  never  been  enough  empha- 
sized in  the  discussion  of  my  theme.  Cities  are 
growing  in  size,  and  with  all  their  grow^th  increase 
the  difficulty  and  the  importance  of  governing  rightly 
the  dangerous  classes.  Such  government  is  impossi- 
ble while  moderate  drinking  is  maintained  among  the 
leaders  of  the  best  portion  of  public  thought  and 
action,  and  while  the  Church  is  inactive  on  this 
matter,  and  while  social  sentiment  rests  in  a  luxuri- 
ous calm  amongst  the  more  dignified  and  educated 
circles.  In  the  name  of  their  most  sacred  duties  to 
society,  my  appeal  is  to  the  conscientious  and  intel- 
ligent to  build  a  temperance  battlement  around  the 
edge  of  the  new  house  of  civil  liberty,  lest  we  have 
blood-guiltiness  brought  upon  the  mansion. 

The   pillar  of  fire  was  a  temperance   leader.     Is 
there    any  other   leader   that   can    guide   us   safely 


APPENDIX.  287 

througli  the  perils  of  popular  self-government  ?  To 
what  did  tliis  pillar  of  fire  lead?  To  a  nation  of 
total  abstainers ;  to  a  priesthood  of  total  abstainers. 
God's  chosen  people,  when  under  his* special  care, 
were  trained  in  the  practice  of  total  abstinence.  Fur- 
nished by  the  Divine  Hand  with  all  they  needed, 
they  drank,  during  forty  years,  no  strong  drink  nor 
wine.  They  were  settled  in  Canaan  as  a  nation  of 
abstainers,  numbering  not  less  than  three  millions 
(Deut.  xxix.  6).  Their  priesthood  was  to  be  made 
up  exclusively  of  total  abstainers.  We  are  con- 
vinced  in  America  that  God's  model  for  this  ancient 
commonwealth  is  the  only  safe  model  for  a  mod- 
ern commonwealth  under  representative  institutions. 
Deum  sequi^  to  follow  God,  said  Seneca,  is  the  height 
of  political  Avisdom.  If  we  are  to  be  followers  of  the 
most  significant  voices  of  Providence  in  our  hazard- 
ous time,  we  must  take  upon  ourselves  the  duty  of 
building  a  battlement  around  the  roof  of  the  new 
house  civilization  is  constructing,  otherwise  it  is  im- 
possible to  avoid  blood-guiltiness. 

Is  there  anything  in  the  Bible  to  overturn  the  two 
great  principles  recognized  by  the  ideal  common- 
wealth of  old,  that  the  people  are  to  be  total  abstain- 
ers, and  that  they  should  be  led  by  a  priesthood 
of  total  abstainers  ?  The  ministry  is  substantially 
sound  on  this  theme.  I  need  not  appeal  to  preach- 
ers, for  they  know  both  sides  of  the  subject.  They 
know  that  there  are  two  sets  of  interpreters  of  cer- 
tain passages  as  to  the  miracle  at  Cana,  and  the  use 
of  wine  by  our  Lord.  This  I  claim,  that  our  Lord  Avas 
consistent  with  himself ;  that  his  practice  was  in  har- 


288  APPENDIX. 

moiiy  with  his  principles  ;  and  that  his  morality  was 
at  least  as  high  as  that  of  the  Book  of  Proverbs. 
Whether  you  say  this  or  the  other  thing  concerning 
minute  matters  of  textual  criticism,  you  are  uttering 
blasphemy  if  you  affirm  that  Christ,  after  reading 
the  command,  ''  Look  not  thou  upon  the  wine  when 
it  is  red,  when  it  giveth  his  color  in  the  cup,  when 
it  moveth  itself  aright,"  created  wine  of  that  sort  and 
gave  it  to  guests  who  had  been  already  several  days 
drinking  intoxicating  wine.  Christ  was  in  all  things 
obedient  to  his  Father,  and  therefore  must  be  sup- 
posed to  have  yielded  glad,  affectionate  obedience  to 
the  commands  implied  in  the  divine  warnings  of  the 
Scriptures  concerning  wine.  Our  Lord  was  loyal  to 
the  Old  Testament,  which  was  his  Bible.  My  con- 
tention is  that  there  is  no  proof  that  Christ  put  the 
dangerously  intoxicating  bottle  to  his  neighbor's  lips. 
There  is  fatal  inconsistency  in  any  other  interpreta- 
tion of  the  Bible.  I  maintain,  without  fear  of  con- 
tradiction, that  there  is  nothing  in  the  example  of 
our  Lord  to  justify  our  modern  social  drinking  cus- 
toms. 

Remember  that  distilled  liquors  were  practically 
unknown  until  the  year  1150.  The  process  of  dis- 
tillation came  into  Europe  at  that  date  from  the 
Moors.  If  you  were  to  sweep  wholly  out  of  existence 
all  distilled  liquors,  you  would  bring  the  world  into 
something  of  the  condition  in  which  it  stood  dur- 
ing the  time  of  our  Saviour.  The  absence  of  dis- 
tilled liquors  would  make  the  more  terrible  forms  of 
drunkenness  and  alcoholic  disease  impossible.  It 
was  against  the  lighter  drunkenness  of  a  world  which 


APPENDIX.  289 

had  in  it  no  distilled  liquors  that  the  fearfid  biblical 
denunciations  of  drunkenness  were  launched.  The 
Bible  denounces  wine  as  a  mocker,  and  proclaims 
that  the  weak  strong-drink  of  ancient  times  at  the 
last  bitetli  like  a  serpent  and  stingeth  like  an  adder. 
What  would  it  say  of  the  fierce  and  poisoned  pota- 
tions of  our  days  ?  Our  race  has  been  tempted  more 
by  intemperance  than  were  the  races  to  which  our 
Saviour  directly  spoke  in  Palestine.  Mr.  Gladstone 
has  said  that  the  German  and  English  speaking  races 
have  suffered  more  from  intemperance  than  from 
war,  pestilence,  and  famine.  Frenchmen  have  not 
suffered  as  much;  Italians  have  not  suffered  as  much. 
Mahomet  made  a  whole  nation  total  abstainers.  The 
weak-kneed  Oriental  has  suffered  less  from  intemper- 
ance than  we  have.  It  is  true  our  homes  have  been 
measurably  free  from  polygamy :  when  barbarians, 
w^e  were  exceptionally  pure  in  our  social  life  ;  but 
from  of  old  we  have  been  given  to  carousal;  from 
of  old  our  weak  point  has  been  the  love  of  strong 
drink. 

The  question  is  whether,  if  our  Lord  were  living 
to-day,  with  these  accursed  modern  drinking  customs, 
with  these  brandied  wines,  with  these  distilled  liq- 
uors, with  these  inherited  evil  appetites  in  existence 
around  Him,  He  would  find  himself  correctly  or  in- 
correctly represented  by  those  who  say  that  his  ex- 
ample justifies  them  in  moderate  drinking.  He  drank 
no  distilled  liquors,  for  in  his  day  there  were  none  in 
existence.  I  hold  that  He  drank  no  dangerously  in- 
toxicating wines.  What  He  drank  was,  very  prob- 
ably, —  perhaps  we  cannot  settle  the  point  beyond 

19 


290  APPENDIX. 

all  dispute,  —  simpl}^  that  lightest  kind  of  wine  which 
the  East  to  this  day,  in  many  portions  of  it,  calls  by 
the  names  of  siipeiiatiye  praise,  that  finest  kind  of 
the  fruit  of  the  grape  that  is  practically  not  intoxi- 
cating. It  is  not  necessary  for  me  to  maintain  that 
in  every  case  it  was  strictly  non-alcoholic  ;  but  it  may 
have  been  so.  I  beg  you  to  give  yourselves  personal 
experience  in  support  of  the  proposition  that  unfer- 
mented  wine  is  a  fact.  Go  to  your  own  shops  in 
London,  and  you  can  have  such  wine  to-day.  You 
say  that  the  juice  of  the  grape  cannot  be  kept  un- 
fermented  any  length  of  time.  That  is  a  popular 
error.  Your  own  Dr.  Norman  Kerr  affirms  that  he 
has  kept  it  in  his  own  house  two,  three,  and  four 
days  absolutely  unfermented.  He  tells  you  that  he 
drinks  unfermented  wine  brought  from  the  East.  I 
know  where  in  London  to  buy  that  kind  of  wdne. 
What  is  more,  I  know  from  some  observation  in  the 
East,  and  from  much  study  of  the  best  authorities, 
that  many  Syrian  churches  to-day  use  that  kind  of 
wdne  in  their  religious  feasts.  In  the  chief  London 
factory  of  unfermented  wine,  the  practical  chemist 
in  charge  of  the  establishment  explained  to  me  his 
process,  and  quoted  to  me  Columella's  and  Pliny's 
receipts  for  preserving  wine  unfermented,  and  as- 
sured me  that  he  could  not  improve  these  ancient 
directions  in  point  of  efficacy.  Dr.  Kerr  has  shown 
that  wine  may  be  preserved  unfermented  by  eight  or 
ten  different  methods,  many  of  which  w^ere  known 
to  the  ancients.^ 

Please  notice  that  I  do  not  make  this  topic  of  un- 

i  See  Unfermented  Wine,  a  Fact,  by  Normau  Kerr,  M.  D. 


APPENDIX.  291 

fermented  wine  a  necessary  part  of  the  temperance 
question.  Far  be  it  from  me  to  say  that  the  temper- 
ance cause  must  have  all  these  details  in  it,  and  that 
otherwise  it  does  not  deserve  our  support.  I  shall 
be  thankful  if  you  will  support  temperance  aside 
from  abstinence ;  but  when  you  misinterpret  the 
example  of  our  Lord  you  hinder  the  effect  of  my 
appeal  to  the  intelligent  and  conscientious.  When 
you  tell  me  that  He  drank  the  fruit  of  the  vine,  and 
that  therefore  you  may  drink  our  modern  whines,  I 
must  ask  you  to  notice  that  your  position  amounts 
very  nearly  to  exegetical  lunacy.  It  never  has  been 
proved  that  our  Lord's  wine,  made  at  Cana,  or  the 
wine  He  drank  himself,  was  anything  nearly  as  dan- 
gerous as  the  wines  you  drink.  I  will  go  further 
and  say  that,  in  my  opinion,  which  I  do  not  ask 
you  to  accept,  it  never  has  been  proved  that  the 
wine  our  Lord  made  at  Cana  and  the  wine  He  drank 
were  not  like  the  wine  we  suppose  He  used  in  insti- 
tuting the  Lord's  Supper  —  this  best  kind,  this  deli- 
cate kind,  this  unfermented  wine,  which  is  used  at 
this  hour,  and  can  be  bought  in  your  own  city  at 
the  present  day.  There  are  far  more  arguments  on 
this  side  of  the  question  than  many  of  you  may  sup- 
pose who  have  not  read  the  recent  literature  on  this 
topic.^ 

My  position  is  not  that  of  Dr.  Lees.  I  do  not  de- 
fend the  theory  that  there  are  two  kinds  of  wines 
mentioned  in  Scripture,  one  alcoholic  and  the  other 

^  See  Fairbairn's  Imperial  Bible  Dictionary,  Prof.  Douglass,  art, 
"  Wine."  Also,  Pearson's  The  Bible  and  Temperance,  and  Canou 
Hopkins,  Holy  Scripture  and  Temperance,  London,  1879. 


292  APPENDIX. 

absolutely  unfermeiited  and  strictly  non-alcoholic.  I 
make  a  distinction  between  strictly  non-alcoholic  and 
practically  non  -  intoxicating  wines.  I  affirm  that 
there  is  no  proof  that  our  Lord  looked  with  desire, 
as  you  do,  upon  the  wine  when  red,  or  that  He  drank 
wine  that  was  dangerously  intoxicating  ;  and  that  it 
is  blasphemy  on  your  part  to  call  Him  a  wine-bibber 
in  serious  earnest,  as  the  Jews  did  when  they  slan- 
dered Him.  John  came  neither  eating  nor  drinking, 
and  it  was  said  of  him,  "  He  hath  a  devil."  Our 
Lord  came  eating  and  drinking,  and  it  was  said,  "Be- 
hold a  wine-bibber  and  a  gluttonous  man."  Now,  I 
hold  you  have  no  more  right  to  call  our  Lord  a  glut- 
tonous man  than  you  have  to  call  Him  a  wine-bibber, 
and  no  more  right  to  call  Him  a  wine-bibber  than 
you  have  to  call  Him  a  gluttonous  man.  It  is  the 
repetition  of  slander  to  call  Him  either  of  these  things. 
We  have  no  more  right  to  infer  that  John  had  a 
devil  from  what  was  said  of  him,  than  to  make  any 
other  audacious  departure  from  common  sense.  But 
we  have  as  much  right  to  say  that  as  to  say  that  our 
Lord  approached  the  edge  of  intoxication  because  He 
was  called  a  wine-bibber.  There  is  high  authority 
among  scholars  of  the  first  rank  for  the  assertion  that 
at  the  Passover  the  wine  used  was  non-intoxicating, 
and  that  our  Lord  instituted  the  Supper  with  such 
wine.^  More  than  1,500  British  churches  now  em- 
ploy unfermented  wine  in  their  administration  of  the 
Sacrament  of  the  Lord's  Supper.  In  regard  to  the 
miracle  at  Cana,  and  the  origin  of  the  Lord's  Supper, 
it  is  certain  that  the  abstainer  has  as  much  to  stand 

1  Encyc.  Brit.,  8th  ed.,  art.  "  Passover." 


APPENDIX.  "^93 

on  in  the  personal  example  of  our  Lord  as  tlie  mod- 
erate drinker. 

Without  claiming  that  the  Bible  absolutely  settles 
the  question  as  to  the  point  I  am  discussing,  I  do 
claim  that  you  have  not  proved,  if  you  are  a  moder- 
ate drinker,  that  it  settles  the  question  on  your  side. 
You  are  far  from  showing  that  there  is  anything  in 
the  example  of  our  Lord  giving  the  remotest  justifi- 
cation to  your  use  of  distilled  liquors  and  brandied 
wines.  I  am  grieved  with  an  indignation  which  I 
dare  not  express  to  the  full  when  I  hear  preachers 
and  church  members  quoting  the  example  of  our 
Lord  in  support  of  the  use  of  distilled  liquors,  which 
were  not  invented  until  the  twelfth  century.  If  our 
Lord  were  in  London  or  New  York  to-day,  face  to 
face  with  our  present  drinking  customs  ;  if  He  were 
here  in  person  as  He  is  in  spirit,  listening  to  the 
cries  of  orphans  and  widows  ;  if  He  could  see  how 
the  best  portions  of  our  civilization  are  imperilled  by 
those  who  fleece  the  poor  and  sell  to  them  strong 
drink,  I  believe,  on  my  soul,  that  He  would  again, 
as  He  did  of  old,  knot  up  the  whip  of  small  cords, 
and  purge  the  Church  —  shall  I  say  from  thieves  ? 
Yes,  I  will  apply  that  term  to  the  whiskey-ring.  He 
w^ould  purge  the  Church  of  moderate  drinking,  and 
in  doing  that  He  would  only  be  giving  efficacy  to 
the  texts:  "It  is  good  neither  to  eat  flesh,  nor  to 
drink  wine,  nor  anything  whereby  thy  brother  stum- 
bleth,  or  is  offended,  or  is  made  weak ; "  "  Lead  us 
not  into  temptation  ;  "  "  Have  no  fellowship  with  the 
unfruitful  works  of  darkness ; "  "Do  not  drink  wine, 
that  ye  may  put  difference  between  holy  and  un- 


294  APPENDIX. 

holy;"  ''  If  meat  maketli  my  brotlier  to  offend,  I  will 
eat  no  meat  while  the  world  standeth."  He  would 
knot  up  his  whip  of  small  cords,  and  use  them  in  the 
name  of  those  secular  principles  to  which  I  have  ap- 
pealed, —  the  necessity  of  temperance  as  a  battle- 
ment to  keep  blood-guiltiness  from  the  roof  of  the 
new  house  civilization  is  building  in  giving  large  and 
somethnes  unlimited  political  power  to  the  j)eople. 

Do  you  say  that  I  am  declaiming  now,  and  leaving 
the  ground  of  hard,  stern  facts  ?  Allow  me  to  go 
back  for  an  instant  to  something  modern.  How 
many  of  your  life  assurance  societies  will  permit 
you,  as  a  moderate  drinker,  to  be  insured  on  the 
same  basis  as  a  total  abstainer  ?  This  is  a  practical 
question.  Since  I  came  to  England  I  have  been 
studying  the  history  of  some  of  your  life  assurance 
societies,  and  I  hold  in  my  hand  literal  extracts  from 
their  own  documents,  —  not  temperance  publications 
at  all ;  and  the  great  outcome  of  the  experience  of 
these  societies  recorded  in  these  official  statements  is 
that  the  total  abstainer  is  paid  from  7  or  10  up  to 
17  and  23  per  cent,  bonus  over  and  above  the  mod- 
erate drinker.  That  is  an  actual  result ;  that  is  not 
the  fancy  of  sentimentalism  ;  that  is  a  broad,  indis- 
putable fact  which  Britons  ought  to  respect  as  the 
result  of  experience.  Not  long  ago  one  of  the  assur- 
ance societies  was  addressed  on  this  point,  and  made, 
through  its  secretary,  the  following  statements  in  a 
letter  of  which  the  original  is  in  my  possession : 
''  During  the  past  sixteen  years  we  have  issued  9,345 
policies  on  the  lives  of  non-abstainers,  but  we  are 
careful  to  exclude  any  who  are  not  strictly  temperate, 


APPENDIX.  295 

and  3,396  on  tlie  lives  of  abstainers ;  524  of  the  for- 
mer have  died,  but  91  only  of  the  latter,  or  less  than 
half  the  proportionate  number,  which,  of  course,  is 
190."  Less  than  half  the  number  of  abstainers  have 
died  compared  with  the  number  that  have  died 
among  non-abstainers  who  were  strictly  temperate ; 
and  this  is  an  experience  of  sixteen  years.^ 

Are  life  assurance  societies  to  be  allowed  to  go 
beyond  the  Church  in  their  regard  for  the  health  of 
men  in  body  and  soul  ?  It  is  to  be  remembered  that 
many  whose  lives  are  assured  as  those  of  total  ab- 
stainers were  not  always  abstinent.  The  contrasted 
figures  will  grow  yet  more  striking  when  the  abstain- 
ers are  such  from  birth.  These  societies  are  not 
governed  according  to  biblical  rules  ;  they  are  not 
governed  by  this  or  that  theory  in  science.  Theirs 
is  stern  common  sense  applied  to  a  selfish  problem, 
and  the  outcome  of  it,  under  long  experience,  is  like 
a  peal  of  thunder  from  Sinai.  It  is  high  time  for 
the  pulpit,  it  is  high  time  for  tlie  pew,  it  is  high 
time  for  young  men  to  arouse  themselves  when  such 
are  the  signs  of  the  times  in  secular  societies.  Here 
is  the  lowest  portion  of  the  sea  rising  in  a  tide  that 
kisses  the  Alps. 

The  Church  of  England  Temperance  Society  is 
organized  on  a  double  basis.  It  says  it  puts  no  social 
distinction  between  the  abstainer  and  the  merely  tem- 
perate man.  But  what  does  it  do  when  it  organizes 
a  rescue  section  ?  I  am  informed  that  the  Church  of 
England  Temperance  Society,  when  it  calls  men  to 

1  See  extracts  in  full,  with  names  and  addresses  of  assurance  socie- 
ties, in  the  Temperance  Record  for  April  28. 


296  APPENDIX. 

go  into  the  slums  and  reach  the  degraded,  acts  on 
the  principle  that  we  cannot  well  smite  with  vigor 
that  with  which  we  fraternize.  Only  total  abstainers 
are  put  into  the  rescue  section  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land Temperance  Society.  The  pledge  of  total  absti- 
nence this  conservative  society  requires  for  the  in- 
temperate ;  the  pledge  of  total  abstinence  it  requires 
for  the  young.  The  Church  of  England  Temperance 
Society  is  not  a  sentimental  body.  It  is  not  made 
up  of  men  who  are  usually  led  astray  by  fancy.  I 
presume  you  have  a  general  respect  for  the  sobriety 
of  mind  of  the  managers  of  that  temperance  organ- 
ization. It  is  true,  I  should  never  personally  arrange 
a  temperance  society  with  a  double  basis ;  I  must 
say  I  do  not  quite  believe  in  that  method  of  con- 
ducting temperance  societies.  But  this  society,  con- 
servative enough  to  be  on  a  double  basis,  is  yet 
shrewd  enough  to  put  into  its  rescue  section  only 
total  abstainers,  and  to  require  total  abstinence  for 
the  intemperate  and  for  the  young.  What  I  claim 
in  the  name  of  my  text,  and  also  in  the  name  of 
the  perils  of  this  new  house  and  its  lofty  roof,  is 
that  all  ministers  shoidd  belong  to  the  rescue  sec- 
tion of  temperance  societies.  I  claim  that  every 
teacher  in  a  Sunday-school,  every  legislator,  every 
judge,  every  father,  every  mother,  every  man  or 
woman  or  child  who  has  named  the  name  of  Christ, 
should  belong  to  the  rescue  section  of  society.  Here 
is  this  sober,  conservative  body  of  men  proclaiming 
that,  without  total  abstinence  in  those  who  go  among 
the  perishing  and  degraded,  they  cannot  obtain  a 
proper  hearing.      What   do   they  say  except  what 


APPENDIX.  297 

God  of  old  said  to  Aaron  ?  *'  Do  not  drink  any 
strong  drink,  or  even  wine,  in  order  that  you  may 
effectuall}^  teach  the  commands  of  Ahnighty  God." 

Lord  Jeffrey  was  once  visited  by  Thomas  Guthrie, 
and  noticed  that  the  latter  took  no  wine.  Guthrie 
explained  that  he  could  not  get  a  hearing  in  the  Cow- 
gate  of  Edinburgh  if  he  went  as  a  moderate  drinker 
to  those  who  were  in  their  cups.  Lord  Jeffrey  in- 
stantly recognized  the  nobleness  of  this  plea.  He 
saw  that  Guthrie  stood  on  the  principle  of  philan- 
thropic prudence,  expediency,  and  self-sacrifice  :  ''  If 
meat  maketh  my  brother  to  offend,  I  will  eat  no 
meat  while  the  world  standeth."  Notice,  I  am  using 
that  principle  under  certain  qualifications.  I  am  not 
admitting  that  alcohol  is  meat ;  but  even  if  it  were, 
I  should  still  hold  that  this  divine  rule  applies  to  it, 
if  it  prevented  my  reaching  the  poor  and  degraded. 
Lord  Jeffrey  treated  Guthrie  with  honor,  because  he 
saw  him  standing  as  a  hard-working  reformer  on  the 
only  practical  and  consistent  basis  of  the  temperance 
reform. 

Take  the  wisdom  of  politics,  the  wisdom  of  science, 
the  wisdom  of  the  Scriptures,  and  join  them  in  one 
beam  of  light,  and  let  it  smite  through  and  through 
you  while  you  look  into  the  face  of  j^our  crucified , 
Lord.  Of  what  are  w^e  dreaming  that  we  can  behold 
his  wounds  and  not  be  willing  to  give  up  our  little 
personal  indulgences  in  order  to  increase  our  useful- 
ness with  the  degraded  ?  Every  church  has  oppor- 
tunity of  reaching  many  families  which  have  been 
afflicted  by  intemperance  ;  every  churcli  ought  to 
draw  into  it  the  intemperate.     What  if  the  intern- 


298  APPENDIX. 

perate  man  comes  into  God's  house,  and  finds  the 
pew  setting  the  example  of  moderate  drinking  ?  Is 
that  safe  ?  Is  that  consistency  ?  It  is  an  unpopular 
doctrine  that  I  am  teaching,  I  know  well ;  but  I  have 
tausrht  it  in  fashionable  churches  in  Boston  and  New 
York,  and  I  do  not  know  that  I  was  ever  criticised 
on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic  for  proclaiming 
unflinchingly  the  impolicy  of  setting  from  the  pulpit 
to  the  reformed  drunkard  in  the  pew  the  example  of 
moderate  drinking.  I  must  not  flinch  here  from  the 
principles  I  have  maintained  yonder,  and  I  proclaim 
here,  as  I  proclaimed  there,  that  when  a  reformed 
drunkard  sits  down  in  a  pew  and  finds  his  neighbor- 
ing church  member  a  moderate  drinker,  or  at  his 
pastor's  table  and  has  wine  offered  to  him  there,  the 
struggling  converted  inebriate  has  not  come  into  a 
place  of  safety;  the  Church  is  not  a  fold  that  is  secur- 
ing him  from  the  wolves  ;  it  is  not  a  place  where  he 
can  repose.  But  I  believe  my  Lord's  bosom  is  such 
a  place.  Although  you  may  blasj)heme  Him  by  talk- 
ing of  the  wine  that  He  made  at  Cana,  and  wine  that 
He  drank,  I  will  go  to  Him,  and  I  Avill  say,  I  do  not 
believe  He  ever  put  the  bottle  to  his  neighbor's  lips 
in  a  way  that  could  intoxicate  him.  I  do  not  believe 
He  looked  on  wine  when  it  was  red.  I  will  find 
safety  in  his  bosom,  and  I  will  proclaim  the  neces- 
sity of  the  reformation  of  the  Church  until  safety  can 
be  found  within  it  as  his  representative.  Safety  for 
the  reformed  inebriate  and  for  the  young  can  never 
be  attained  while  we  admit  moderate  drinking  into 
the  pulpit  or  into  the  pew. 

A  distinguished  divine  from  New  York  came  lately 


APPENDIX.  299 

to  Boston  and  assailed  total  abstinence,  and  lie  did 
so  in  the  name  of  the  Bible.  He  has  been  most 
effectually  answered.  His  "  calm  view  of  temper- 
ance "  turned  out  to  be  a  calm  before  the  storm. 
Since  liis  reactionary  argument  was  delivered,  Mas- 
sachusetts temperance  societies  have  exhibited  an 
unwonted  activity,  and  the  State  has  passed  a  new 
and  severe  temperance  enactment.  Six  hundred 
ministers  recently  assembled  in  Boston  in  a  conven- 
tion intended  to  inaugurate  a  movement  in  favor  of 
Constitutional  Prohibition.  "  While  carrying  the  war 
into  Africa,  this  belated  reformer,"  says  the  chair- 
man of  the  committee  under  whose  auspices  he  spoke, 
"  stood  among  his  hearers  as  a  solitary  sentinel,  pac- 
ing round  the  deserted  citadel  of  his  own  opinions." 
A  brewer  of  Cincinnati  ordered  two  hundred  and 
fifty  copies  of  the  lecture.  One  million  copies  of  it 
are  announced  as  for  sale  by  a  brewers'  newspaper 
in  Chicago.  Its  author's  health  was  toasted  in  the 
dram-shops.  Mr.  Phillips,  our  most  distinguished 
anti-slavery  reformer,  often  reminds  the  people  of 
New  England  that  when  slavery  was  first  discussed 
in  the  United  States  the  Bible  was  quoted  in  sup- 
port of  it.  But  we  have  looked  into  that  matter. 
No  doubt  slavery  is  described  in  the  Bible  ;  no  doubt 
one  or  two  forms  of  it  were  in  various  ways  hedged 
about,  so  that,  though  allowed  to  live  for  a  while, 
they  fell  at  last.  But  chattel  slavery,  that  colossal 
curse  of  my  native  land,  I  hold  the  Bible  does  not 
justify.  Nevertheless,  we  had  the  Bible  thrown  in 
the  face  of  the  anti-slavery  reform  at  first.  Wait  a 
little  and  we  shall  by  and  by  have  the  Bible  used  to 


300  APPENDIX. 

support  the  temperance  cause,  and  no  longer  tliro\;vn 
in  the  face  of  progress.  The  theory  that  the  Bible 
speaks  with  approbation  of  intoxicating  drinks  makes 
the  Scriptures  contradict  themselves,  and  so  violates 
the  first  principle  of  a  sound  interpretation  of  the 
Sacred  Word.  Mr.  Phillips  tells  us  that  Mr.  Wade, 
of  Ohio,  who  was  once  an  infidel,  was  asked  to  be 
president  of  a  societ}^  the  object  of  which  was  to 
show  that  the  Bible  supports  slavery.  "I  will  do 
so,"  said  he  ;  ''  I  will  be  president ;  but  suppose  that 
we  prove  that  the  Bible  supports  slavery,  people  will 
ask,  '  What  is  the  good  of  such  a  Bible  ? '  and  in  an- 
swering that  question  I  can  be  of  no  help  at  all." 
Suppose  that  we  prove  that  the  Bible  justifies  mod- 
erate drinking,  what  is  the  good  of  such  a  Bible  ? 
Face  to  face  with  the  facts  of  our  social  condition,  of 
our  scientific  research,  and  of  our  church  life,  what 
is  the  good  of  a  Bible  which  increases  rather  than 
diminishes  our  temptation  ? 

The  revered  pastor  of  this  church  teaches  more 
men  on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic  than  on  this 
side.  At  least  twenty  or  twenty-five  years  ago  I 
used  to  hang  in  rapture  OA^er  his  discourses,  as  pub- 
lished in  America,  when  he  was  a  youth  in  London. 
Fifty  millions  of  people  on  the  other  side  of  the 
Atlantic,  thirty-five  or  thirty-eight  millions  here,  — 
his  influence  yonder  I  hold  to  be  as  great  as  his  influ- 
ence here.  Consider  what  good  is  done  by  his  exam- 
ple of  abstinence.  Consider  how  many  are  strength- 
ened in  an  unpopular  cause  by  his  stalwartness  as  he 
stands  here  and  proclaims  his  reverence  for  absti- 
nence as  a  principle,  justified  by  the  great  law  of 


APPENDIX.  301 

self-sacrifice.  Whether  he  would  agree  with  me  in 
the  interpretation  of  these  texts  I  do  not  know,  and 
I  do  not  ask.  It  is  not  necessary  for  me  to  suppose 
that  he  would.  I  do  not  know  that  he  would  disa- 
gree ;  but  this  I  know,  that  the  principle  of  self- 
sacrifice,  the  necessity  of  avoiding  blood-guiltiness, 
the  great  inculcation  of  the  central  text,  that  it  is 
good  to  do  nothing  by  which  our  brother  stumbleth, 
he  recommends  to  himself  and  through  himself  to 
the  world.  His  responsibility  he  measures  by  God's 
great  law  of  self-sacrifice,  and  so  would  I  have  every 
minister  and  every  one  who  teaches  God's  truth 
measure  their  responsibilities  in  religion,  in  politics, 
and  in  social  life. 

Many  abstainers  are  found  among  preachers,  and 
are  yet  not  chronicled  in  temperance  statistics.  But 
the  Church  of  England  is  known  to  have  already - 
3,000  abstaining  clergymen.  The  Baptists  in  Eng- 
land and  Wales  have  510  abstaining  ministers,  and 
the  Congregationalists,  824.  A  great  majority  of  the 
preachers  among  the  Friends  are  total  abstainers. 
The  Calvinistic  Methodists  of  Wales,  with  few  ex- 
ceptions, are  total  abstainers.  A  large  majority  of 
the  preachers  of  the  United  Methodist  Free  Churches 
abstain  wholly.  Half  the  Wesleyan  ministers  in  Eng- 
land and  Wales  are  abstainers.  The  number  of  ab- 
staining ministers  in  the  Church  of  Scotland  is  200 ; 
in  the  Free  Church  of  Scotland,  300 ;  in  the  United 
Presbyterian  Church,  220.  Lord  Bacon  said  the 
opinions  and  practices  of  young  men  are  the  best 
mateiials  for  prophecy.  In  these  islands,  it  is  very 
significant  that  abstinence  is  becoming  the  rule  with 
candidates  for  the  preacher's  holy  calling.     All  the 


802  APPENDIX. 

students  of  the  Methodist  New  Connection  are  ab- 
stainers. In  Cheshnnt,  Hackney,  Lancashire,  New 
and  Spring  Hill  Congregational  Theological  Colleges, 
there  are  192  students,  of  whom  136  are  abstainers. 

There  is  one  perfectly  sure  remedy  for  intemper- 
ance, and  that  is  total  abstinence.  There  is  no  sure 
remedy  except  that,  and  Avhat  I  will  not  recommend 
to  myself  I  will  not  recommend  to  others.  I  have 
been  a  total  abstainer  from  birth.  I  rejoice  that  I 
was  early  taught  to  abhor  even  moderate  drinking, 
and  that  what  I  suppose  to  be  sound  principles  as  to 
temperance  Avere  inculcated  upon  me  from  the  very 
outset  of  my  preferences  as  a  child.  Let  us  bring 
up  our  offspring  by  our  example  as  well  as  by  our 
precept.  Let  us  set  in  our  households  such  a  blazing 
light  before  our  children  that  when  they  come  into 
the  temptations  of  great  cities  they  shall  be  strong 
in  advance  of  their  period  of  trial.  Let  us  put  the 
school  and  the  press  on  the  right  side.  Let  us  make 
the  Church  a  great  pillar  of  fire,  through  which  God 
can  look  in  the  morning  watch  of  better  ages  to  come, 
and  trouble  the  hosts  of  his  enemies,  and  take  off 
their  chariot-wheels. 

When  we  see  the  Cross  of  Christ  vividly  we  are 
sure  to  be  melted ;  when  we  are  melted  we  are  sure 
so  to  pity  our  erring  brothers  as  to  be  anxious  to 
purge  the  Church  of  the  sins  which  make  even  God's 
house  other  than  a  place  of  refuge  for  the  reformed 
inebriate.  "When  we  thus  purge  the  Church  we  shall 
purge  the  parlor,  we  shall  purge  the  press,  we  shall 
puige  OLir  statute  books,  and  deliver  civilization  from 
a  curse  which  has  gnawed  our  vitals  more  deeply 
than  war,  or  pestilence,  or  famine. 


APPENDIX  IV. 


REPLY  TO   PROFESSOR   SMYTPI,   OF   ANDOVER, 
FEBRUARY  12. 

SHALL  ORTHODOXY  BECOME   SEMI-UKIVERSALIST  ? 

Professor  Smyth  is  a  gentleman  in  a  most  in- 
fluential position,  and  has  the  respect  of  all  New 
England  for  his  scholarship  and  piety.  He  was  my 
teacher,  not  in  dogmatic  theology,  for  that  is  not  his 
specialty,  but  in  ecclesiastical  history.  He  is  the 
brother  of  the  Rev.  Dr.  Newman  Smyth,  of  New 
Haven,  Connecticut.  I  do  not  know  that  Professor 
Smyth  wrote  the  series  of  questions  I  am  about  to 
answer.  The  rumor  is,  that  two  or  three  hands  were 
employed  in  their  preparation  ;  but  Professor  Smytli 
says  that  he  is  responsible  for  them.  In  a  note,  over 
his  own  name,  in  the  Boston  "  Daily  Advertiser  "  of 
January  24,  he  calls  my  attention  to  a  series  of 
questions  published  in  that  paper  January  13,  and 
especially  to  a  series  published  January  20,  and 
adds  :   "  For  that,  with  the  first,  I  am  responsible." 

My  thesis,  which  is  quoted  in  the  communication 
to  the  Boston  "  Daily  Advertiser  "  of  January  13,  is 
proposition  fifteen  in  my  prelude  of  January  8 : 
"  Every  responsible  human  being,  by  the  gift  of  a 


804  APPENDIX. 

free  will  and  a  conscience,  or  by  this  gift  and  that  of 
the  knowledge  of  the  gospel  besides,  having  had  a 
fair  chance  or  more  than  a  fair  chance,  the  Divine 
love  and  mercy  are  not  questionable  ;  a  perfect  The- 
odicy is  possible ;  the  ways  of  God  to  men  are  jus- 
tified." Upon  this  Professor  Smyth  asks  a  series  of 
questions,  which  I  now  read,  one  by  one,  from  his 
printed  copy,  and  answer  :  — 

1.  "  What  part  is  assigned  to  Christianity  in  this 
Theodicy  ? 

The  same  as  in  the  Theodicy  of  Leibnitz,  or  Julius 
Miiller,  or  Jonathan  Edwards,  or  N.  W.  Taylor,  or 
Professor  Park,  or  Professor  Fisher.  A  Theodicy  is 
a  vindication  of  the  Divine  justice  in  ordaining  or 
permitting  natural  and  moral  evil.  To  vindicate  the 
Divine  love  and  mercy  is  more  than  to  vindicate 
merely  the  Divine  justice.  Christianity  does  the 
former,  and  so,  of  course,  it  does  the  latter.  Chris- 
tianity shows  that  the  Divine  love  and  mercy  are 
not  questionable,  for  it  exhibits  a  Divine  atonement 
which  provides  opportunity  of  pardon  for  all  men 
whose  repentance  is  genuine,  and  this  provision  is  it- 
self such  an  exhibition  of  the  Divine  perfections  as 
to  be  the  most  powerful  motive  to  repentance.  Mak- 
ing the  readiness  of  God  to  do  more  than  justice  re- 
quires thus  evident,  Christianity  makes  his  readiness 
to  do  what  justice  alone  requires  super-abundantly 
evident. 

2.  "  Does  the  phrase  '  fair  chance '  cover  anything 
besides  conscience  and  freedom  ?  " 

Intelligence,  with  social  and  moral  appetencies 
and  affections,  or  the  moral  equipment  of  a  human 


APPENDIX.  305 

soul  in  a  state  of  sanity,  go  with  freedom  and  con- 
science, and  so,  too,  in  average  cases,  the  light  of  na- 
ture and  experience.  "  The  Gentiles  having  not  the 
law,  do  by  nature  the  things  contained  in  the  law. 
These,  having  not  the  law,  are  a  law  unto  them- 
selves, their  consciences  bearing  witness."  "  As 
many  as  have  sinned  without  law  shall  also  perish 
without  law."  (Rom.  xi.)  "  For  the  wrath  of  God 
is  revealed  from  heaven  against  all  ungodliness  and 
unrighteousness  of  men  who  hold  the  truth  in  un- 
righteousness." "  Because  that  which  may  be  known 
of  God  is  manifest  in  them,  for  God  hath  showed  it 
unto  them.  The  invisible  things  of  Him  from  the 
creation  of  the  world  are  dearly  seen,  being  under- 
stood by  the  things  that  are  made,  even  his  eternal 
power  and  Godhead,  so  that  they  are  Avithout  ex- 
cuse." (Rom.  i.)  The  Scriptures  teach  unquali- 
fiedly that  all  responsible  beings,  whether  they  have 
received  the  written  law  or  heard  of  the  historic 
Christ  of  revelation  or  not,  have  had  a  fair  chance. 
My  definition  of  a  fair  chance  is  the  biblical  one  in 
all  its  details.  The  fundamental  vice  of  Dd'rner^s  es- 
chatology  is  that  it  underrates  conscience^  belittles  the 
majesty  of  the  human  faculties^  and  of  the  moral  law 
revealed  to  all  men  through  nature^  and  fails  to  point 
out  with  any  adequate  emphasis  the  aufulness  of  the 
resp>onsibility  which  is  laid  on  the  soid  hy  that  law 
alone.  His  definition  of  a  fair  chance  is,  therefore, 
at  once  unscientific  and  anti-scriptural,  and  this  is 
the/o7zs  et  origo  of  the  mischiefs  of  his  teaching  in 
esphatology. 

3.  ''  Does  it  refer  to  the  possibility  of   avoiding 


306  APPENDIX. 

sin,  or  to  the  opportunity  of  recovery  from  sin  ?     To 
the  action  of  a  moral  agent  per  se  or  to  the  recovery 
of  a  prodigal  son  ?  " 
To  both. 

4.  "  If  to  the  former,  does  not  this  possibility  con- 
tinue after  death  ?  " 

The  mere  possibility  does,  for  freedom  continues  ; 
but  to  prove  that  the  soul  may  repent  after  death  is 
not  to  prove  that  it  will.  May  and  will,  certainty 
and  necessity,  ability  to  repent  and  willingness  to  re- 
pent, must  be  distinguished  from  each  other  most 
carefully  at  every  point  in  the  discussion  of  eschatol- 
ogy  on  grounds  of  reason.  On  grounds  of  Scripture, 
I  hold  that  the  exegetical  researches  of  centuries 
have  justified  the  orthodox  opinion  that  probation  in 
its  strict  sense  ends  at  death. 

5.  "If  the  latter,  does  not  this  opportunity  include 
supernatural  agency  ?  " 

Yes,  for  it  includes  provision  for  deliverance  in 
this  life  from  the  guilt  of  past  sin. 

6.  "  Do  the  words  '  more  than  a  fair  chance  '  refer 
to  a  legal  or  a  redemptive  system  ?  " 

To  a  redemptive  system,  in  the  sense  of  one  in- 
cluding the  influences  of  the  atonement. 

7.  "  If  the  latter,  is  not  this  system  universal  as 
respects  the  human  race  ?  " 

Atonement  is  universal  ;  redemption  is  limited. 
The  question  seems  to  confuse  atonement,  or  the 
provision  on  God's  part  for  man's  pardon  on  certain 
conditions,  with  redemption,  or  the  acceptance  of 
those  conditions  on  man's  part.  If  the  question 
means :  Has  not  the  atonement  made  possible  the 


APPENDIX.  307 

pardon  of  the  sins  of  the  whole  race  ?  it  is  to  be  an- 
swered in  the  affirmative. 

8.  "If  it  is  universal,  do  not  the  heathen  have 
'more  than  a  fair  chance  '  ?  " 

Yes,  in  some  sense,  though  not  in  the  full  sense. 
Their  pardon  is  provided  for  on  the  basis  of  the 
atonement,  provided  they  really  follow  and  love  all 
the  light  they  have.  "  In  every  nation  he  that  fear- 
eth  God  and  worketh  righteousness  is  accepted  of 
Him,"  but  through  an  atonement.  The  heathen  live 
unconsciously  under  a  system  of  grace. 

9.  "Is  'a  perfect  Theodicy,'  as  respects  God's  ' love 
and  mercy,'  possible,  except  on  the  basis  of  a  reme- 
dial system  ?  " 

A  perfect  Theodicy  is  possible  without  an  atone- 
ment. It  is  a  first  principle  of  New  England  theol- 
ogy that  the  vindication  of  the  justice  of  God  does 
not  depend  on  his  providing  an  atonement.  He  is 
not  obliged  either  to  atone  for  or  to  redeem  men,  in 
order  that  He  may  prove  himself  just.  He  would  be 
just  even  if  He  punished  all  men  as  they  deserve. 
The  question  is  ambiguous,  for  it  is  not  clear  what 
the  writer  means  by  a  remedial  system.  If  he  means 
a  redemptive  system,  including  an  atonement,  the 
answer  is  in  the  affirmative.  Perhaps  the  writer 
means  to  imply  that  it  is  impossible  to  justify  God 
in  permitting  or  ordaining  moral  or  natural  evil,  un- 
less atonement  or  redemption  be  general. 

A  remedial  system  of  a  certain  breadth  is  involved 
in  the  divine  government  of  the  universe  according 
to  natural  law.  If  only  this  remedial  system  existed, 
the   divine   justice  would   not   be  questionable,  nor 


308  APPENDIX. 

would  the  divine  love  and  mercy.  The  best  pagan 
philosophy  —  as  that  of  Plato,  Seneca,  Marcus  Aure- 
lius,  and  Epictetus  —  supports  this  proposition  ;  and 
so  does  the  Old  Testament  theology,  as  that  of  Job 
and  Psalms.  God's  superabundant  love  and  mercy 
are  fully  exhibited,  however,  only  by  the  remedial 
system  revealed  by  Christianity. 

10.  "  Is  it  possible  on  the  basis  of  a  limited  atone- 
ment ?  " 

Atonement  is  general ;  redemption  is  particular. 
The  atonement  is  not  limited.  It  is  possible,  how- 
ever, without  any  atonement,  to  vindicate  God's  love 
and  mercy,  as  the  apostle  does  in  Acts  xiv.  15-18. 
Redemption  is  limited  solely  by  man's  own  choice. 
If  this  question  is  not  a  confused  one,  it  points  toward 
Universalism,  for  it  suggests  the  idea  that  it  is  im- 
possible for  God  to  be  just  without  making  an  atone- 
ment. 

11.  "  Is  it  possible  on  the  basis  of  an  equally  lim- 
ited operation  of  the  Spirit  ?  " 

The  gift  of  the  Spirit  in  converting  power  is  an 
act  of  grace,  and  not  of  justice.  But  the  influences 
of  the  Spirit  are  given  in  some  measure  to  all  respon- 
sible human  agents,  and  if  these  influences  are  fol- 
lowed, a  greater  measure  is  given.  All  who  have  con- 
science have  the  general  influence  of  the  Spirit ;  and 
all  who  yield  utterly  and  gladly  to  the  guidance  of 
the  innermost  voice  of  conscience  may  expect  the 
special  influences  of  the  Spirit. 

12.  'Mf  '  it  is  the  sight  of  an  atonement  which  is 
the  chief  force  in  producing  the  new  birth '  (Prop. 
10),  and  if  probation  for  all  ends  at  death  (^Prop, 


APPENDIX.  309 

14),  liow  are  '  God's  love  and  mercy '  vindicated  in 
view  of  the  fact  that  thus  far  the  vast  majority  of 
the  human  race  have  had  no  such  vision  in  this 
life  ?  " 

This  question  is  answered  by  the  replies  already 
given  to  questions  two,  seven,  eight,  and  nine.  God 
is  under  obligation  to  give  all  men  a  fair  chance,  but 
not  to  give  all  or  any  more  than  a  fair  chance.  God's 
love  and  mercy  are  vindicated  by  the  Scriptures,  on 
grounds  which  apply  to  all  who  have  merely  the 
light  of  conscience,  nature,  and  experience. 

13.  "  When  it  is  said  '  Whoever  permanently  re- 
jects .  .  .  the  innermost  voice  of  conscience  rejects 
.  .  .  the  essential  Christ  (^Prop.  1),  what  is  the  force 
of  the  word  '  permanently '  ?  Does  it  refer  to  an 
outAvard  fact,  a  change  produced  by  physical  death, 
or  to  a  moral  change  ?  Is  the  first  act  of  moral 
agency  decisive  for  eternity,  if  death  immediately 
intervenes  ?  " 

Whoever  rejects  the  truth  as  revealed  by  con- 
science and  the  Holy  Spirit,  acting  through  the  moral 
sense,  and  does  not  repent  of  his  rejection  ;  this  is 
the  meaning  of  the  word  permanently.  It  refers  to 
a  moral  change,  and  its  consequences  under  the  sys- 
tems of  both  law  and  grace. 

The  soul  that  decides  once  against  God  continues 
to  be  against  God  until  it  repents.  The  Scriptures 
hold  out  no  offer  of  grace  after  death.  A  soul  that 
does  not  repent  before  death,  nor  in  death,  of  the  one 
evil  choice  here  in  question,  is  losing  its  day  of  grace. 
"He  that  offendeth  in  one  point  is  guilty  of  all." 
This  is  both  a  scientific  and  a  biblical  truth. 


310  APPENDIX. 

14.  "  In  such  a  case,  is  the  permanence  arbitrary 
or  rational  ?  " 

Rational,  of  course,  for  there  is  nothing  arbitrary 
in  the  divine,  natural,  or  supernatural  dealings  with 
the  soul.  There  is  a  probation  before  death  and 
there  is  a  probation  at  death,  and  it  is  rational  to  ex- 
pect that  he  who  passes  both  these  without  repent- 
ance will  never  repent. 

15.  ''If  arbitrary,  how  is  this  fact  consistent  with 
*  a  perfect  Theodicy  '  ?  " 

Nothing  connected  with  the  salvation  or  perdition 
of  the  soul  is  arbitrary. 

16.  "  If  rational,  how^  under  the  conditions  of  moral 
agency  (which  include  free  personality)  is  a  perma- 
nent moral  state  produced  by  physical  death  ?  " 

No  permanent  moral  state  is  produced  by  death, 
considered  merely  as  a  physical  change. 

17.  "Or  is  the  permanence,  in  case  of  a  wrong 
choice,  due  to  this  choice,  plus  the  withdrawal  of  su- 
pernatural aid  ?  " 

The  permanence  of  an  evil  moral  choice  rests  on 
the  choice  itself,  after  death,  as  ^vell  as  before.  But 
after  death  the  permanence  is  reinforced  by  the  with- 
drawal of  such  supernatural  aid  and  opportunities  of 
grace  as  are  given  to  men  during  life.  The  fact  of 
such  withdraw^al  is  a  revealed  truth. 

18.  "If  so,  how  is  the  provision  of  a  universal 
atonement  harmonized  with  a  use  of  it  limited,  so 
far,  to  but  a  small  fraction  of  the  human  race*?  " 

The  limitation  of  the  use  of  the  atonement  is 
wholly  due  to  man's  evil  choice  not  to  repent.  How 
is  the  provision  for  science  harmonized  with  the  igno- 
rance of  men  ? 


APPENDIX.  311 

19.  "  How  does  a  Theodicy  wliicli  is  compelled  to 
assert  such  a  withdrawal  from  many  millions  of  hu- 
man beings  justify  '  divine  love  and  mercy  '  and  '  the 
ways  of  God  to  men  '  ?  " 

By  showing  that  God  gives  to  all  men  a  fair  chance 
or  more  than  a  fair  chance.  He  does  all  He  can 
wisely  do  for  every  soul  without  destroying  its  free 
will,  and  judges  every  soul  according  to  its  use  of  its 
opportunities.  What  God  does  not  do  could  not  be 
wisely  done  by  Him. 

This  question  is  another  instance  of  confusion  of 
thought,  or  else  it  implies  that  God's  love  and  mercy 
cannot  be  justified  unless  there  be  a  universal  re- 
demption, or,  at  least,  a  universal  atonement.  This 
is  a  ground  principle  of  Universalism. 

20.  "If  infants  are  not  moral  agents  {Projj.  13), 
on  what  ground  is  it  'to  be  hoped  that  in  death,  at 
the  sight  of  God's  face,  they  will  acquire  entire  har- 
mony of  the  soul  with  Him  '  ?  {Prop.  13.)  What 
reason  is  there  to  think  that  in  articulo  mortis  they 
become  moral  agents  ?  Is  the  change  from  '  not 
moral  accents  '  to  '  moral  ascents  '  effected  '  in  death '  ? 
Or  is  the  development  after  death  ?  If  so,  what  be- 
comes of  the  universal  proposition,  '  Probation  in  its 
strict  sense  ends  at  death  '  ?  QProp.  14.)  Is  more 
than  one  half  of  the  human  race  not  under  this  law? 
That  is,  may  their  probation  be  after  death  ?  " 

The  least  and  perhaps  all  that  can  be  said  of  those 
who  are  not  moral  agents  in  this  life  is,  that  they 
are  in  the  hands  of  the  Judge  of  all  the  earth,  who 
will  assuredly  do  right.  [Applause.]  Infants  are 
not  moral  agents,  and  therefore  have  not  sinned,  and 


312  APPENDIX. 

therefore  do  not  deserve  to  be  punished.  As  being 
born  \Yith  latent  evil  propensities,  they  need  a  Re- 
deemer, and  they  have  one  ;  but  in  this  case  there 
is  nothing  in  the  divine  justice  to  j3revent  our  hope. 
Because  infants  have  not  sinned,  in  the  sense  of  put- 
ting forth  evil  personal  choices,  we  are  confident  that 
they  are  not  placed  among  the  v^icked  after  death. 
It  is  said  of  children  that  of  such  is  the  kingdom  of 
heaven,  and  that  in  heaven  their  angels  do  always 
behold  the  face  of  the  Father.  Whether  their  acqui- 
sition of  entire  harmony  of  soul  with  God  is  effected 
in  death  or  after  death,  their  destiny  at  death  is  not 
to  be  presumed  to  be  uncertain.  Probation^  in  its 
st7'ict  sense^  implies  uncertcmift/  of  result.  There  may 
he  progress  and  preparation  of  the  souls  of  infants 
after  deaths  hut  not  probation  in  the  strict  sense. 
[Loud  applause.] 

21.  "  Does  not  Mr,  Cook  look  at  the  whole  subject 
now  under  a  turban,  uovv  under  a  hat ;  new  on  the 
basis  of  principles  of  moral  agency  legally  rather 
than  religiously  understood,  now  on  the  basis  of  a 
redemptive  system  ;  with  an  unconscious  transition, 
back  and  forth,  ad  libitum  f  Is  such  a  method 
'  hugely  '  scientific  ;  or,  rather,  is  it  not  ?  " 

This  is  another  instance  of  confused  ideas.  What 
is  meant  by  the  phrase  "legally  rather  than  relig- 
iously "  ?  God's  laws  are  all  religious.  Now  on  legal 
principles,  now  on  the  redemptive  system  ?  The 
proposition  was :  "  Every  man  has  a  fair  chance 
legally  or  more  than  a  fair  chance  graciously.''''  The 
distinction  between  the  two  systems  is  steadily  kept 
in  view  throughout  the  discussion. 


APPENDIX.  313 

These  twenty-one  questions  contain  nothing  for- 
midable [Applause]  ;  but  I  must  now  answer  seven 
more,  which  are  publislied  in  the  "  Advertiser  "  of 
January  20th. 

1.  "Does  Mr.  Cook  understand  Paul  (2  Cor.  y. 
10)  to  include  under  '  things  done  in  the  body  '  things 
done  after  the  breath  '  leaves  the  body  '  ?  " 

In  the  experiences  of  the  soul  at  death  occur  some 
of  the  most  important  things  done  in  the  body.  Paul, 
in  the  passage  referred  to,  includes  them.  "  Be  thou 
faithful  unto  death ''  is  a  frequent  exhortation  of  the 
New  Testament  Scriptures. 

2.  "  Mr.  Cook  refers  to  Paul's  being  '  caught  up  to 
the  seventh  [a  slip  of  the  pen]  heaven  '  (the  apostle 
was  content  to  call  it  the  third),  and  adds  :  '  The 
soul,  before  it  is  separated  from  the  body,  may  very 
probably  hear  unspeakable  things.'  Does  Mr.  Cook 
think  the  case  analogous?  If  so,  how  is  he  able 
to  transcend  the  wisdom  of  the  apostle,  who  said, 
'-  Whether  in  the  body  or  apart  from  the  body  I  know 
not.  God  knoweth  '  ?  Did  Mr.  Cook  get  this  knowl- 
edge, too,  'in  being  thrown  twenty  feet  down  a  rocky 
bank  in  a  sleeping-coach  on  a  swift  railway  train  '  ?  " 

Paul's  soul,  in  the  experience  here  narrated,  was 
able  to  return  to  his  body,  and  it  is  to  be  presumed, 
therefore,  that  it  was  not  wholly  disconnected  with 
the  body  at  the  time  of  the  experience ;  but,  if  a 
nearly  total  release  from  the  body  brought  this  expe- 
rience, then  a  partial  release  may  bring  an  experi- 
ence partially  like  it.  The  marvellous  quickening  of 
memory  and  conscience,  in  many  cases,  in  those  who 
are  near  death  or  expect  instant  death,  is  a  fact  of 


314  APPENDIX. 

science,  and  ivill  not  he  spoken  of  lightly  hy  any  one 
who  has  ever  observed  it^  either  in  another  or  in  him- 
self, 

3.  "  Mr.  Cook  cites  Matthew  xxv.  43  as  confirma- 
tory of  his  position  that  men  are  to  be  judged  for 
their  conduct  here,  and  also  of  his  use  of  2  Corin- 
thians V.  10.  Does  he  suppose  that  the  soul,  after 
breath  leaves  the  body,  is  able,  in  the  hody^  to  visit 
prisoners,  feed  the  hungry,  clothe  the  naked,"  etc.  ? 

In  moral  principle,  yes ;  but  it  must  be  understood 
here  that  the  qualifications  I  have  repeatedly  insisted 
on  in  connection  with  the  case  described  are  all  kept 
in  view. 

4.  "  Or,  does  he  suppose  that  the  apostle,  in  his 
allusion  to  things  done  in  the  body,  may  include 
things  done  in  the  '  spiritual  body '  ?  If  so,  how  does 
the  text  support  the  proposition  that  probation  ends 
with  death  ?  " 

The  text  is  rightly  interpreted  as  referring  to 
deeds  done  in  our  present  physical  bodies,  for  death 
is  to  be  defined  as  the  separation  of  the  soul  from  the 
physical  body. 

6.  ''  Mr.  Cook  deems  it  '  in  the  highest  degree 
probable  that  souls  are  divinely  illuminated  by  death, 
and  thus  are  brought  to  final  permanence  of  charac- 
ter.' He  also  affirms  that  '  it  is  the  light  of  atone- 
ment which  is  the  chief  force  in  producing  the  new 
birth.'  How  far  is  this  in  principle  from  Dr.  Dor- 
ner's  position,  that  final  permanence  is  reached 
through  a  decision  in  view  of  atoning  love  ?  " 

Dorner's  system  of  thought  supposes  that  a  soul 
reaches  a  permanent  moral  state  only  by  a  view  of 


APPENDIX.  315 

atoning  love  as  seen  in  an  actual  presentation  of  tlie 
historic  Christ,  and  by  accepting  or  rejecting  this 
presentation.  The  seven  objections  which  I  have 
made  to  this  system  have  been  published.  [See  the 
New  York  "  Independent,"  January  18th.]  It  is  one 
thing  to  assert  that  conversion  among  those  to  whom 
the  gospel  is  preached  is  produced  chiefly  by  a  view 
of  the  atonement,  and  another  to  assert  that  in  the 
case  of  all  human  souls,  in  this  life  or  the  next,  it 
is  produced  07ily  by  it. 

6.  "  Mr.  Cook  characterizes  Dorner's  eschatology 
as  '  bewildering,'  '  narrow,'  '  reversionary,'  and  '  haz- 
ardous to  the  souls  of  men.'  Will  he  explain  why 
it  is  so  much  safer  to  teach  a  probation  after  breath 
than  a  probation  after  death?  [A  full  reply  to  this 
point  had  been  given  in  Mr.  Cook's  remarks  before 
his  lecture.]  Is  an  opinion  founded  on  indications 
of  Scripture  and  on  the  finality  and  absoluteness  of 
Christianity,  that  men  who  have  not  rejected  God's 
character  and  love  as  revealed  in  Christ  here  will 
have  opportunity  to  come  to  a  final  decision,  in  view 
of  his  claims  before  coming  to  his  bar,  likely  to  pro- 
duce more  painful  results  than  the  well-nigh  baseless 
speculation  that  impenitent  men  generally  may  have 
an  opportunity  in  death  and  make  a  final  choice, 
under  supernatural  light  and  an  '  unutterable  series 
of  voices  from  the  seventh  heaven '  ?  " 

The  difference  is  between  the  limitation  of  oppor- 
tunity to  life  and  death,  and  its  extension  to  the  un- 
counted ages  of  an  intermediate  state  between  death 
and  the  general  judgment. 

7.  "Is  this  extension  of   probation  by  Mr.  Cook 


316  APPENDIX. 

anvtliing  less  than  a  confession  that  the  old  theory 
Avith  ^vhich  he  starts  is  moribund  and  already  out  of 
breath  ?  Why  does  he  introduce  into  the  discussion 
a  speculation  unsupported  by  a  single  text  of  Scrip- 
ture and  peculiarly  liable  to  perversion?  It  is  be- 
cause he  would  hold  on  to  a  transient,  perishing  for- 
mula, indigenous  to  theology  and  not  to  Scripture, 
and  yet  would  not  and  cannot  resist  the  pressure  of 
principles  which  transcend  it.  To  Mr.  Cook,  as  well 
as  to  Dr.  Dorner,  it  seems  congruous  with  Christian- 
ity and  with  reason  that  probation  be  defined  in  the 
sphere  of  character.  An  arbitrary  limit  is  unlikely, 
and  requires  for  its  acceptance  the  clearest  proof. 
Mr.  Cook  realizes  this,  and  so  would  put  into  death 
all  the  powers  of  the  world  to  come,  all  the  regener- 
ating forces  of  the  gospel.  The  attempt  is  a  flag  of 
distress." 

I  have  not  extended  the  period  of  probation  beyond 
death,  and  so  have  not  exceeded  the  limit  of  the 
Scripture  as  interpreted  by  orthodoxy.  I  have  ex- 
hibited simply  the  solemnity  of  death  in  many  aver- 
age cases,  and  the  results  which  must  be  expected  to 
follow  under  natural  law  from  resisting  the  voices  of 
conscience  when  it  is  aroused  by  the  king  of  terrors. 

As  to  these  questions  in  general,  it  is  to  be  noticed 
that :  — 

1.  They  frequently  confuse  together  atonement 
and  redemption. 

2.  They  confuse  distributive  justice  with  other 
Divine  attributes. 

3.  They  belittle  conscience,  present  no  proper  idea 
of  justice,  or  of  the  dignity  of  the  moral  law  revealed 


APPENDIX.  317 

in  nature,  and  of  man's  responsibility  as  a  free  agent 
under  it. 

4.  Tliey  insinuate  principles  which  lead  to  Univer- 
salis m. 

5.  They  are  open  to  the  seven  objections  made,  in 
the  Monday  lecture  of  January  8,  to  Dorner's  escha- 
tology. 

6.  They  seem  to  be  all  the  result  of  an  inconse- 
quent method  of  reasoning  or  of  obscure  and  blurred 
ideas. 

7.  If  they  are  not  the  result  of  simple  indefinite- 
ness  in  thinking,  then  they  are  an  indication  of  real 
heterodoxy. 

Having  answered  twenty-eight  questions  for  which 
Professor  Smyth  is  responsible,  I  now  venture  to  put 
to  him  four.  [Loud  applause.]  Andover  is  not  the 
object  of  my  criticism.  I  am  endeavoring  to  protect 
it.  I  have  made  diligent  inquiries,  and,  so  far  as  I 
can  ascertain,  Professor  Smyth  is  the  only  teacher 
now  in  the  Theological  Seminary  at  Andover  who 
would  be  willing  to  make  himself  responsible  for  the 
assertions  and  implications  connected  Avith  these 
questions.  He  has  made  himself  responsible  for 
them.  I  do  not  know  another  professor  at  Andover 
who  would  do  as  much.  My  questions  are  solely  to 
my  questioner. 

1.  How  far  may  a  man  indorse  Dorner's  eschatol- 
ogy  and  yet  intelligently  and  honestly  subscribe  the 
Andover  Seminary  Creed  in  its  original  and  historic 
sense?     [Prolonged  applause.] 

2.  How  far  may  a  man  indorse  Dorner's  eschatol- 
ogy  and  yet  intelligently  and  honestly  subscribe  the 


318  APPENDIX. 

Andover  Seminary  Creed  for  substance  of  doctrine  ? 
[Applause.] 

3.  How  does  Professor  Smyth  reconcile  his  respon- 
sibility for  his  signature  to  the  Andover  Seminary 
Creed  with  his  responsibility  for  the  assertion,  in 
connection  with  these  questions,  that  the  orthodox 
doctrine  of  the  limitation  of  probation  to  this  life  is 
a  "  moribund,"  "  perishing,  and  transient  formula  "  ? 
[Applause.] 

4.  What  alterations  in  the  standard  New  School 
teaching  of  New  England  Theology  as  to  Probation, 
Inspiration,  and  the  Atonement  would  meet  with 
Professor  Smyth's  approval  ?     [Loud  applause.] 


REPLY  TO  PROFESSOR  SMYTH,  FEBRUARY  19. 

It  is  no  part  of  my  purpose,  this  morning,  to  reply 
in  full  to  Professor  Smyth's  three  columns  of  fine 
type  in  the  Boston  "  Daily  Advertiser  "  of  Saturday, 
February  17th  ;  but  there  are  six  errors  as  to  mat- 
ters of  fact  which  vitiate  his  whole  discussion,  and  I 
point  them  out  at  once,  to  show  that  the  communica- 
tion is  very  vulnerable. 

1.  Professor  Smyth  is  entirely  mistaken  in  suppos- 
ing that  by  "  redemption,"  and  "  a  redemptive  sys- 
tem including  the  Atonement,"  I  mean  the  same 
thing.  His  reply  to  seven  points  of  ni}^  criticism,  as 
well  as  the  whole  force  of  his  somewhat  surprising 
citation  from  Samuel  Weller,  turns  wholly  on  this 
palpable  mistake,   and  so  is  really  no  reply  at  all. 


APPENDIX  319 

The  act  of  redemption  is  different  from  the  redemp- 
tive system,  because  the  latter  inchides  the  Atone- 
ment. My  positions  as  to  the  distinction  between 
atonement  and  redemption  are  those  which  have 
been  familiar  to  New  England  theology,  and  in  con- 
stant use  at  Andover  for  a  generation.  Professor 
Smyth  should  have  noticed  that  in  a  passage  he  does 
not  cite  I  speak  of  the  limitation  of  redemption  as 
"  due  to,'''  that  is,  as  occurring  on  account  of,  "man's 
evil  choice  not  to  repent  "  (Answer  to  question  18), 
and  that  this  language  interprets  the  passage  which 
he  does  cite.  The  latter  can  be  set  in  opposition  to 
the  standard  definitions  of  New  School  New  England 
theology  only  by*  an  incorrect  statement  of  its  mean- 
ing. 

2.  Three  of  the  four  questions  put  to  Professor 
Smyth,  and  in  the  answers  to  which  the  public  gen- 
erally and  the  religious  press  in  particular  have  ex- 
pressed a  keen  interest,  he  entirely  evades. 

3.  He  does  not  show  that  he  has  not  characterized 
the  theory  or  formula  which  limits  probation  to  this 
life,  as  "moribund,  perishing,  and  transient,"  nor 
how  this  language  is  to  be  reconciled  with  his  public 
position  as  a  professor  in  Andover  Theological  Semi- 
nary. 

After  being  elaborately  questioned  by  Professor 
Smyth,  and  after  replying  to  his  questions,  I  have  a 
right,  as  a  graduate  of  Andover  Seminary,  to  put  to 
him  a  question  as  to  this  blazing  point  of  discussion. 
I  have  a  right  simply  as  an  American  citizen  to  put 
Ijhis  question  on  the  large  matter  of  creed  subscrip- 
tion.    This  is  a  very  old   and   prominent   topic   in 


820  APPENDIX. 

England,  and  may  yet  become  such  here.  It  is  one 
in  which  the  public  is  greatly  interested,  and  on 
which  the  views  of  a  gentleman  of  Professor  Smyth's 
high  culture  and  standing  would,  no  doubt,  be  of 
value  to  us  all. 

4.  Professor  Smyth  is  mistaken  in  supposing  that 
I  have  put  into  the  word  probation  the  meaning  I 
wish  to  draw  out  of  it  —  namely,  that  it  implies  un- 
certainty of  result.  That  meaning  was  in  the  word 
by  established  usage  as  long  ago  as  the  days  of 
Cicero  and  Csesar.  Definitions  are  not  made,  but 
grow. 

5.  Professor  Smyth  is  mistaken  in  asserting,  with- 
out qualification,  that  I  am  a  Calvinist.  New  Eng- 
land New  School  theology  is  not  Calvinism,  but  mod- 
ified Calvinism,  a  consistent  Calvinism,  and  is  better 
called  simply  Ncav  School  New  .England  theology, 
the  name  by  which  it  is  known  at  home  and  abroad. 

6.  Professor  Smyth  is  mistaken  in  sujDposing  that 
by  "  the  essential  Christ "  I  mean  only  conscience  in 
its  attitude  of  command,  without  regard  to  con- 
science in  its  attitude  of  benediction  to  the  soul  that 
obeys  its  command.  I  mean  by  the  essential  Christ, 
as  my  language  shows,  "  God  immanent  in  the  moral 
nature  of  every  man,"  or,  in  scriptural  words,  ''the 
Logos,"  or  "  the  Light  that  lighteth  every  man  that 
cometh  into  the  world  "  and  that  "  in  the.  beginning- 
was  with  God  and  was  God." 

My  chief  purpose  in  referring  thus  early  to  Pro- 
fessor Smyth's  rejoinder  to  my  answer  to  his  twenty- 
eight  inquiries  is  to  prepare  the  way  for  a  fuller 
answer   by  asking  Professor  Smyth  himself  a   few 


APPENDIX.  321 

more  natural  and  necessary  questions.  One  of  my 
reasons  for  putting  these  inquiries  to  Professor 
Smytli  lie  himself  expresses  admirably.  "  Mr.  Cook," 
says  Professor  Sm^^tli,  "  has  been  out  of  the  country. 
He  does  not  know  what  has  been  going  on.  [Laugh- 
ter.] A  little  more  information  and  intelligence  in 
these  matters  would  enable  him  to  use  his  powers  to 
much  greater  advantage."  For  the  purpose  of  mak- 
ing this  discussion  more  thorough,  and  especially 
more  spiritually  profitable,  I  put  twelve  new  inqui- 
ries, and,  in  view  of  my  own  frankness  in  answering 
twenty -eight  and  more  of  Professor  Smyth's  ques- 
tions, the  public  will  expect  him  to  reply  to  this 
much  fewer  number. 

1.  What  are  Professor  Smyth's  definitions  of  a 
theodicy ;  a  perfect  theodicy  ;  atonement ;  redemp- 
tion ;  a  remedial  system  ;  the  Divine  justice ;  a  fair 
chance  ;  more  than  a  fair  chance ;  a  decisive  proba- 
tion ;  a  merely  possible  truth,  against  which  no 
dogma  can  be  laid  down  ? 

2.  In  the  sentence,  "  Every  soul  that  sees  Christ 
as  its  final  judge  will  before  have  seen  Him  as  its 
atoning  sacrifice,"  what  is  meant  by  "  seeing  Christ 
as  an  atoning  sacrifice  "  in  the  case  of  those  who 
have  no  knowledge  during  life  as  to  the  historic 
Christ  ? 

3.  What  is  meant  by  it  in  the  case  of  those  who 
have  heard  of  the  historic  Christ  only  in  a  fragmen- 
tary, false,  or  otherwise  seriously  imperfect  way  ? 

4.  If  the  principle  adopted  by  Professor  Smyth  in 
the  sentence  quoted  is  applied  seriously,  does  it  not 
include  the  cases  not  only  of  "  infants,  idiots,  luna- 

22 


322  APPENDIX. 

tics,  and  some  heathen,"  but  of  all  who  have  not 
heard  at  all,  or,  although  hearing,  have  not  ade- 
quately heard,  of  the  "  historic  Christ "  ? 

5.  Does  Professor  Smyth  indorse  the  following  po- 
sition of  Dorner  ?  "  The  absoluteness  of  Christianity 
demands  that  no  one  he  judged  before  Christianity  has 
been  made  accessible  and  brought  home  to  him.  But 
that  is  not  the  case  in  this  life  with  millions  of  hu- 
man beings.  Nay,  even  within  the  Church  there  are 
periods  and  circles  where  the  gospel  does  not  really 
approach  men  as  that  ivhich  it  really  is^  ^ 

In  the  citations  I  am  to  make  from  Dorner  I  beg 
leave  to  call  the  attention  of  this  audience  most  care- 
fully to  his  language,  which  I  quote  from  the  Rev.  Dr. 
Newman  Smyth's  edition  of  a  fragment  of  Dorner's 
work,  although  I  should  advise  all  who  wish  for  a 
complete  view  of  this  theme  to  read  T.  &  T.  Clark's 
edition  of  Dorner's  whole  theology,  or,  better  yet, 
the  original  German. 

6.  How  does  Professor  Smyth  show  that  it  is  not 
spiritually  hazardous  in  an  appalling  degree  to  give, 
as  Dorner  does  in  the  passage  cited,  such  a  definition 
of  a  fair  chance  that  not  only  all  who  have  never  heard 
of  the  historic  Christ,  but  millions  who  have,  will 
think  they  have  not  had  a  fair  chance,  and  then  to 
promise  to  all  these,  on  easy  and  liberal  terms,  a  con- 
tinued probation  after  death  ? 

7.  How  does  Professor  Smyth  reconcile  either 
Dorner's  position  or  his  own  with  the  position  of  St. 
Paul  in   Romans  i.  and  ii.,  that  all  who  have  con- 

1  Doruer  on  The  Future  State,  ed.  by  the  Kev.  Dr.  Newman  Smyth, 
p.  lOl. 


APPENDIX.  .  323 

science,  free  will,  and  the  light  of  nature  and  experi- 
ence, are  without  excuse  ? 

8.  What  does  Professor  Smyth  think  of  the  fol- 
lowing position  of  Dorner  :  "  The  sin  which  leads  to 
damnation  can  never  be  the  sin  resulting  from  in- 
nate sinfulness  alone  or  at  all  from  the  influence  of 
the  race,  the  common  spirit,  example,  or  temptation 
by  error.  Rather  the  sin  rendering  the  individual 
absolutely  had  can  only  be  the  persorial  guilt  of  reject- 
ing Christ,'"  1 

9.  According  to  Professor  Smyth,  is  the  rejection 
of  the  atoning  love  of  God,  as  seen  in  the  historic 
Christ,  as  presented  to  human  souls  here  or  in  the 
intermediate  state,  the  only  ground  of  final  condem- 
nation? Is  such  rejection  the  only  act  that  fixes 
character  ?  If  probation  lasts,  as  Professor  Smyth 
teaches,  until  such  rejection  of  the  historic  Christ 
takes  place,  and  if  only  what  fixes  character  ends 
probation,  does  he  not  teach  that  it  is  this  rejection 
and  this  only  wliich  fixes  character  ?  Does  not  this 
imply  that  among  those  who  have  not  heard  of  the 
historic  Christ  in  this  life,  not  one  in  this  life  has 
fixed  his  character  or  could  fix  it,  no  matter  how  evil 
his  deeds  or  how  thoroughly  confirmed  his  habits  of 
vice  ?  Is  not  such  a  position  most  atrociously  friv- 
olous, as  well  as  mischievous,  since  it  is  palpably 
contrary  to  what  is  accurately  known  of  human 
character  from  modern  ethical  science  and  all  great 
literature  and  philosophy  of  every  creed  and  school, 
as  well  as  in  most  direct  contradiction  to  the  Holy 
Scriptures. 

1  See  Dorner  ca  The  Future  State,  edited  by  the  Rev.  Dr.  Newman 
Gmyth,  p.  125. 


324  APPENDIX. 

10.  What  is  Professor  Smyth's  reply  in  detail  to 
the  twelve  passages  of  Scripture  cited  in  the  Prelude 
to  the  lo2d  Boston  Monday  Lecture,  as  showing,  di- 
rectly or  indirectly,  that  probation  in  its  strict  sense 
does  not  extend  to  the  intermediate  state  ?  In  par- 
ticular, what  is  Professor  Smyth's  reply,  on  the  basis 
of  exegesis  or  literary  good  sense,  and  not  on  that  of 
a  citation  of  authorities,  to  the  position  that  Peter 
is  to  be  explained  as  consistent  with  himself,  and  2 
Peter  ii.  explains  the  references  in  1  Peter  to  preach- 
ing to  spirits  in  prison  ? 

11.  How  does  Professor  Smyth  justify  the  Divine 
character  as  a  whole,  including  love  and  mercy,  as 
well  as  justice,  in  permitting  an  unequal  distribution 
among  men  of  the  goods  of  this  life  —  such  as  health, 
education,  intellectual  and  moral  endowments  at 
birth  —  and  external  incitements  to  virtue,  as  well 
as  in  what  appears  to  be  an  unequal  operation  of  the 
Holy  Spirit  upon  the  individuals  of  the  race  in  this 
life? 

12.  How  does  Professor  Smyth  justify  the  Divine 
character  as  a  whole  in  creating  beings  who,  as  the 
divine  omniscience  previous  to  their  creation  fore- 
sees, will  be  forever  lost  ? 

In  Professor  Smyth's  article  I  am  told  that  there 
is  no  attempt  to  force  Dorner  on  the  j^^^iblic ;  but 
here  is  a  translation  (holding  up  the  Rev.  Dr.  New- 
man Smyth's  edition  of  Dorner  on  "  The  Future 
Life " )  of  all  that  Dorner  says  on  eschatology 
puslied  before  the  public  by  a  gentleman  who  does 
not  indorse  him  in  every  particular,  as  I  very  well 
know ;  but  who,  nevertheless,  is  regarded  by  the  in- 


APPENDIX.  325 

telligent  part  of  the  public  as  in  some  sense  a  cham- 
pion of  Dorner's  view  on  many  points.  You  will 
allow  me  to  be  perfectly  frank  here.  I  know  that  I 
have  been  out  of  this  country,  but  whom  have  I  at- 
tacked since  returning?  Dorner,  and  no  American. 
Dorner,  I  have  studied  for  years.  I  have  listened  to 
him  often  in  Berlin.  I  have  seen  the  disastrous  ef- 
fects of  his  teaching  in  eschatology  on  much  of  the 
preaching  in  German  state  churches.  Returning  to 
America,  I  did  not  take  part  in  a  debate  that  was 
new  to  me.  When  have  I  named  any  American 
here  belonging  to  what  I  call  the  siren  school  of 
semi  -  Universalism  ?  Not  till  men  of  that  school 
came  forward,  and  in  print  attacked  this  platform, 
was  there  the  name  of  a  man  of  that  school  whis- 
pered here.  I  do  not  pretend  to  know  what  the 
siren  school  of  semi  -  Universalism  inside  American 
Congregational  orthodoxy  thinks.  This  movement 
has  no  newspaper  of  its  own  as  yet.  [Laughter.] 
There  is  no  accredited  organ  of  this  faction  ;  for  I 
will  not  dignify  it  by  the  name  of  party.  There 
is  a  Plymouth  pulpit  faction,  inside  of  orthodoxy, 
or  outside,  which  shall  I  say  ?  [Laughter.]  "  Out- 
side," gentlemen  behind  me  say.  Marcus  Aurelius 
wrote  :  "  Abhor  all  that  needs  walls  and  curtains." 
If  I  am  to  follow  this  precept,  and  if  I  am  to  keep 
in  view  these  columns  of  questions  to  me  by  Pro- 
fessor Smyth,  and  this  volume  issued  by  the  Rev. 
Dr.  Smyth,  and  the  months  of  discussion  which 
have  raged  about  this  name,  I  must  say  that  there  is 
also  a  Smyth  faction.  [Laughter.]  It  has  no  con- 
nection whatever  with  the  first,  except  in  repudiat- 


326  APPENDIX. 

ing  the  view  that  probation  is  limited  to  this  life. 
Professor  Smyth  is  a  vigorous  and  most  honorable 
opponent  of  the  first  faction.  Until  attacked,  I  did 
not  once  name  that  other  faction  nor  the  Smyth  fac- 
tion, for  I  do  not  pretend  to  know  accurately  what 
they  think.  I  am  anxious  to  ascertain.  It  is  pos- 
sible, if  I  can  sufficiently  draw  the  fire  of  these  fac- 
tions, that  by  and  by  my  ignorance  will  be  ade- 
quately enlightened.  One  of  my  objects  is  to  draw 
the  fire  of  the  enemy,  and  I  am  succeeding,  if  you 
please.     [Laughter  and  applause.] 

Summarizing  the  central  question  of  a  current 
debate  under  this  phraseology,  ''  Park  or  Dorner, 
which  ?  "  I  am  told  by  Professor  Smyth  that  this 
language  is  unfit  to  be  addressed  to  cultured  persons, 
because  it  savors  of  an  appeal  to  local  prejudices.  If 
Dorner  had  taught  at  Andover  what  he  has  taught 
at  Berlin,  and  if  Professor  Park  had  taught  at  Ber- 
lin what  he  has  taught  at  Andover,  I  should  be 
to-day  a  German  in  my  theology  and  a  vehement 
opponent  of  the  New  England  School.  [Applause.] 
It  is  only  on  account  of  the  clearness,  niassiveness, 
comprehensiveness,  acuteness,  and  conclusiveness  of 
the  best  portions  of  the  tliought  of  the  New  School 
New  England  theolog}^  that  I  reverence  it.  I  am  not 
a  New  Englander  by  birth.  It  is  true  I  have  lived 
here  more  than  anywhere  else  in  the  world,  and 
passed  the  more  important  of  my  school-days  here ; 
but  my  theological  sympathies  are  not  limited  by 
geographical  lines.  I  repel,  as  utterly  unworthy  of 
any  generous  or  cultivated  person,  the  suspicion  that 
I  am  ruled  by  provincial  prejudices  and  local  attach- 


APPENDIX.  327 

ments.  Clear  ideas  at  any  cost  carried  out  to  the 
thirty-two  points  of  the  compass,  these,  with  spiritual 
purposes,  are  what  I  revere  and  what  I  do  not  find  in 
Dorner's  eschatology,  but  do  find  in  Professor  Park 
and  his  great  predecessors  among  those  who  have  de- 
veloped NcAV  England  theology.  It  Avill  be  under- 
stood, of  course,  that  I  do  not  lack  reverence  for 
orthodox  evangelical  theology  outside  of  New  Eng- 
land. The  principles  I  am  defending  are  common 
to  the  standards  of  all  the  evangelical  bodies. 

If  I  have  said  anything  that  seems  personally  dis- 
courteous to  any  one,  I  cancel  it.  My  object  is  to 
cultivate  here  entire  freedom  of  discussion,  without 
discourtesy.  I  have  been  out  of  the  country,  and 
have  not  participated  in  the  discussions  which  have 
aroused  in  many  circles  a  bitterness  of  feeling  which 
amazes  and  pains  me.  Let  it  be  far  from  us  in  this 
assembly.  I  would  unite  with  Professor  Smyth  in 
prayer  to  Almighty  God  that  we  may  be  led  into  the 
truth,  the  whole  truth,  and  nothing  but  the  truth. 


REPLY    TO    PROFESSOR   SMYTH,   MARCH  12. 

Truth,  honor,  liberty,  and  peace  are  the  essen- 
tials of  healthy  life  in  Congregationalism,  as  in  any 
other  religious  body.  There  must  be  peace  in  the 
Church  ;  but,  to  use  Lord  Beaconsfield's  phrase,  it 
must  be  peace  with  honor,  witli  liberty,  and  Avith 
truth.  There  must  be  liberty,  but  liberty  with  peace, 
honor,  and  truth.     There  must  be  honor,  but  honor 


328  APPENDIX. 

with  trutli,  liberty,  and  peace.  There  must  oe  truth, 
and  this  inckides  within  itself  peace,  liberty,  and 
honor. 

Can  Dornerism  in  escJiatology  he  introduced  into 
the  theological  chairs  and  pulpits  of  the  Evangelical 
churches^  and  especially  of  the  Congregational  hody^ 
in  consistency  with  truth,  honor,  liberty,  and  peace  ? 

On  this  question,  which  is  the  central  one  in  all 
I  have  said  or  published  in  the  current  debate  on 
probation,  I  maintain  the  negative.  This  is  my  chief 
contention  now,  and  has  been  from  the  first ;  so  that, 
establishing  this  point,  my  case  is  carried  in  precisely 
the  form  in  which  it  was  stated  at  the  outset  of  the 
discussion. 

So  far  was  I  from  intending  to  attack  Professor 
Smyth,  of  Andover,  when  I  raised  here,  on  January 
8th,  the  question,  "  New  England  Orthodox  Theol- 
ogy ;  or,  German  State  Church  Theology,  which  ? 
Park  or  Dorner,  which  ?  "  that  I  did  not  have  him 
in  mind  as  one  who  would  be  likely  to  be  offended 
by  my  criticisms  of  Dorner.  I  did  not  know  I*rofes- 
sor  Smyth's  views.  I  supposed  him  to  be  loyal  to 
the  Andover  Seminary  creed,  to  which  he  had  re- 
peatedly given  his  signature.  I  had  not  the  slightest 
intention  of  making  public  reference  to  him  or  any 
of  his  friends  ;  and  when  his  twenty-eight  questions 
appeared,  I  did  not  even  dream  that  he  was  their 
author.  Besides,  falling  into  most  palpable  error  in 
regard  to  the  six  matters  of  fact  which  I  mentioned 
here  on  February  19th,  Professor  Smyth  is  entirely 
mistaken  in  asserting  that  I  "  attacked  vehemently, 
and  undertook  to  announce,  as  by  authority,  what 


APPENDIX.  329 

was  agreed  upon  as  to  the  beliefs  of  a  professor  in 
Andover  Seminary."  ^  I  profess  solemnly  that  I 
attacked,  and  intended  to  attack,  no  American,  and, 
least  of  all,  any  professor  at  Andover,  a  town  of  great 
and  honorable  fame,  which  is  very  naturally  dear  to 
me,  after  nearly  seven  years'  residence  there  as  a 
student. 

I  took  Dorner  for  the  object  of  my  attack  for  three 
reasons :  — 

(1.)  He  is  an  object  large  enough  to  be  seen  on 
both  sides  of  the  Atlantic,  so  that  a  discussion  of  his 
views  has  a  certain  timeliness  and  dignity  abroad  as 
well  as  at  home. 

(2.)  His  views  had  recently  been  placed  before 
the  world  in  authoritative  and  final  shape  in  his  four 
volumes  of  theology,  so  that  there  could  be  no  debate 
as  to  what  his  opinions  are.  There  was  no  authori- 
tative statement  before  the  public,  and  there  is  not 
yet,  as  to  the  views  of  those  who  are  more  or  less 
Dorner's  followers  in  this  country. 

(3.)  By  undermining  the  authority  of  Dorner's  es- 
chatology,  I  was  sure  to  undermine  the  authority  of 
what  had  been  built  upon  it ;  and  I  could  not  but 
see,  as  a  student  of  current  events,  that  in  America 
as  well  as  in  Germany,  and  in  the  Broad  Church,  so 
called,  ill  the  Anglican  establishment,  not  a  little 
had  been  built  on  it.  My  object  was  to  strike  a 
blow  as  useful  as  possible  not  onl}^  at  home,  but  in 
any  circles  to  which  the  printed  words  of  this  discus- 
sion might  ultimately  be  wafted  in  newspaper  form, 
or  in  books  republished  abroad. 

1  See  his  communication  in  the  Daily  Advertiser  of  February  1 7, 
first  column. 


330  APPENDIX. 

1.  Practical  mischiefs  of  Dornerism  and  of  Pro- 
fessor SmytliS  ivorhing  hypothesis  in  eschatology :  — 

What  is  Dornerism  in  eschatology?  Some  few 
unprofessional  heavers  may  ask:  ''What  is  escha- 
tology?" This  word  is  compounded  very  simply  of 
Greek  eschatos,  last,  and  logos,  a  discourse,  and  means 
the  doctrine  of  the  last  things ;  that  is,  of  death,  the 
last  judgment,  and  the  end  of  the  world.  It  includes 
in  most  theological  systems  a  discussion  of  the  res- 
urrection, the  intermediate  state  of  departed  souls, 
Christ's  second  advent,  the  eternal  woe  of  the  lost, 
and  the  eternal  blessedness  of  the  saved.  It  is  a 
to2nc  so  unsijeakahly  vast  and  solemn  that  no  inistake 
concerning  it  can  he  so  small  as  not  to  be  colossal.  It 
can  be  fitly  discussed  only  in  the  clearest  light  of 
strictly  self-evident  truths  and  of  revelation,  and  in 
the  spirit  of  devoutest  prayer. 

If  I  were  speaking  only  before  scholars  in  the- 
ology, I  might  say  that  Lutheranism,  in  spite  of  its 
many  merits  in  other  particulars,  has  had  a  reputa- 
tion for  two  centuries  for  browbeatins:  and  twistinoj 
Scriptures  so  as  to  make  the  external  standard  of 
authority  conform  to  the  inner  standard  of  Christian 
consciousness.  Luther  himself,  with  all  his  massive 
greatness  as  preacher,  scholar,  prophet,  and  reformer, 
•was  sometimes  guilty  of  this.  It  is  well  known  that 
he  denied  the  canonicity  of  the  Epistle  of  James,  not 
at  all  because  he  thought  it  spurious  as  an  historical 
document,  but  because  its  contents  did  not  suit  his 
Christian  consciousness.  His  boldness  in  this  matter 
has  not  been  copied  by  Calvinistic,  Scottish,  Angli- 
can,  Wesleyan,  or  American   theologians.     It   has, 


APPENDIX.  331 

however,  been  imitated  almost  as  an  inspired  prece- 
dent by  many  Lutheran  theologians,  and  specially 
by  Dorner.  Although  lie  covers  his  audacity  by  a 
cloud  of  reverential  pli rases,  he  is  really  almost  as 
eccentric  in  this  matter  as  was  Luther.  Here  is  a 
scholarly  article  in  a  recent  number  of  the  "  British 
and  Foreign  Evangelical  Review,"  ^  and  it  affirms, 
unqualifiedly,  what  scholars  here  know  has  been  said 
hundreds  of  times  before  by  the  most  unprejudiced 
and  learned  critics,  that  "  it  became  the  habit  of  the 
Lutheran  Church  from  its  cradle  to  make  the  Word 
of  God  bend  and  bow  to  prop  up  those  dogmas  which 
were  once  for  all  regarded  as  essentials  of  revela- 
tion." American  students  of  Dorner  are  likely  to  be 
very  seriously  misled  as  they  examine  his  "  History 
of  Protestant  Christiauity  "  and  his  ''System  of  Chris- 
tian Doctrine,"  unless  they  keep  constantly  in  view 
this  background  of  notorious  facts  in  the  develop- 
ment of  the  Lutheranism  which  Dorner  champions. 

To  uproot  error  we  must  uproot  its  lowermost 
roots,  and  so  I  ask  you  to  go  back  with  me  to  the 
beginning  of  Dorner 's  chief  errors,  mi  undue  exalta- 
tion of  the  Christian  consciousness  above  Scriptui^e  as 
a  source  of  certainty  in  regard  to  religious  triith. 

Dorner's  tests  of  truth  in  theology  are  Scripture 
and  faith.  To  these  he  constantly  appeals  as  the 
formal  and  material  principles  of  the  Lutheran  Ref- 
ormation, and  of  Protestantism.  They  are  the  organ- 
izing ideas  of  Lutheran  theology,  of  which  Professor 
Dorner  is  the  foremost  living  representative.  Dor- 
ner's   system  of  theological  thought   has  really  no 

1  October,  1882,  p.  680. 


332  APPENDIX. 

centre.  It  is  not  a  circle,  but  an  ellipse,  and  its  two 
foci  are  Scripture  and  Faith.  As  in  the  formation 
of  an  ellipse,  one  focus  has  as  much  guiding  power  as 
the  other,  so,  in  the  construction  of  his  system  of 
doctrine,  one  of  these  authorities  is  as  good  as  the 
other.  The  revelation  made  in  the  Bible  as  a  whole, 
and  by  the  incarnation  of  God  in  Christ,  is  one  focus 
of  the  ellipse;  and  the  other  is  Faith  —  a  word  on 
which  everything  depends,  but  which  Dorner  is  far 
from  using  in  a  clear,  distinct,  and  unvarying  mean- 
ing. It  usually  signifies  what  I  must  call  regenerate 
individualism  ;  or,  what  he  calls  the  Christian  con- 
sciousness. To  become  authoritative,  a  doctrine,  ac- 
cording to  Dorner,  must  be  justified  by  both  these 
tests.  This  is  only  carrying  out  Luther's  famous  say- 
ing, quoted  with  approval  by  Dorner :  ^  "  The  vital 
point  is  that  we  equalize  the  Scriptures  and  the 
Christian  conscience." 

It  is,  of  course,  clear  that  there  is  a  great  dis- 
tinction between  conscience  and  consciousness^  as  the 
words  are  used  in  philosophy  in  our  day  of  exact 
research  ;  but  it  is  by  no  means  clear  that  Luther 
always  made  a  distinction  between  the  two,  nor  that 
Dorner  does,  although  Luther  usually  seems  to  mean 
the  former,  and  Dorner  the  latter.  Dorner  has  been 
greatly  influenced  by  Schleiermacher  and  Hegel ; 
and  his  use  of  philosophical  terms  cannot  always  be 
understood  without  a  tolerably  wide  knowledge  of 
the  systems  of  thought  of  his  own  teachers. 

At  the  last  analysis,  however,  as  has  been  so  often 
charged  against  other  Lutheran  theologians,  Dorner 

1  History  of  Protestant  Theology,  vol.  i.  p.  25G,  by  T.  &  T.  CLark. 


APPENDIX.  333 

depends  in  some  cases  more  on  Faith  than  on  Scrip- 
ture, as  a  test  of  religious  truth.  When  Scripture 
on  the  one  hand  and  regenerate  individualism  on  the 
other  seem  to  conflict,  he  does,  in  many  most  impor- 
tant cases,  make  the  latter  of  considerably  more  im- 
portance than  the  former.  For  example,  he  says  : 
*'  That  some  are  lost  rests  on  preponderant  exegetical 
grounds,  but  that  gives  no  dogmatic  proposition,  be- 
cause this  must  be  derived  also  from  the  principle  of 
Faith."  No  amount  of  explanation  can  bring  this 
and  the  scores  of  similar  passages  to  be  found  in 
Dorner's  works  into  harmony  with  Avhat  standard 
evangelical  theology  has  for  centuries  regarded  as 
sound  principles. 1 

Precisely  here  is  the  point  at  which,  according  to 
my  judgment,  Dorner  opens  a  door  for  a  flood  of 
mystical,  obscure,  erratic,  and  often  mischievous 
speculations.  As  one  of  his  admiring  students  in 
America  has  said,  with  singular  failure  to  perceive 
that  this  praise  is  the  greatest  dispraise :  "  Any  one 
who  has  once  grasped  the  controlling  principle  of 
Doimer's  theology  .  .  .  will  need  no  explanation  of 
Dorner's  dogmatic  hesitancy^  when  he  finds  himself 
unable  to  reconcile  facts  of  history  or  texts  of  Scrip- 
ture with  that  which  Faith  has  already  learned  to 
deem  Christ-like  and  most  worthy  of  God.  It  is  not 
enough  for  a  Christian  doctrine  that  it  be  apparently 
contained  in  the  Scripture ;  it  needs,  also,  to  be 
recognized  as  Christian  by  Faith."  ^ 

1  See  Dorner  on  The  Future  State,  ed.  by  the  Rev.  Dr.  Newman 
Smyth,  p.  127. 

2  The  Rev.  Dr.  Newman  Smyth's  Introduction  to  Dorner  on  Tlie 
Future  State,  p.  12. 


334  APPENDIX. 

The  obvious  peril  of  this  principle  is,  that  its  ten- 
dency is  to  make  the  ultimate  test  of  dogmatic  cer- 
tainty not  what  the  Scriptures  declare  to  be  worthy 
of  God,  but  what  the  Christian  consciousness  thinks 
to  be  worthy  of  God.  We  are  not  to  follow  Scrip- 
ture, even  w^hen  its  preponderating  testimony  is  clear 
to  us,  provided  our  Christian  consciousness  is  op- 
posed to  Scripture.  We  are  not  to  believe  what  we 
are  taught  by  revelation  as  to  God,  but  what  we 
think  we  ought  to  be  taught.  We  are  not  to  hold 
facts  of  history  and  texts  of  Scripture  subject  to  that 
interpretation  which  a  scientific  treatment  of  the 
records  of  revelation  requires  ;  we  are  to  put  upon 
them  an  interpretation  which  w^e  deem  Christ-like 
and  most  worthy  of  God. 

(1.)  My  central  objection  to  Dorner's  general  sys- 
tem of  thought  is,  that  his  ultimate  test  of  certainty, 
in  many  cases  of  the  highest  importance,  is  nothing 
more  than  individualistic  whim.  It  may  be  regener- 
ate individualism  to  which  he  appeals;  it  may  be 
the  Christian  consciousness  of  the  best  portions  of 
the  Church,  age  after  age  ;  it  may  be  what  he  calls 
Faith,  regarded  as,  equally  with  Scripture,  a  work  of 
the  Holy  Spirit ;  but  in  a  close  examination  it  wdll 
be  found  that  it  is  on  what  man  thinks  God  ouglit  to 
teach,  and  not  on  wdiat  revelation  shows  that  God 
does  teach,  that  Dorner  founds  his  theology. 

(2.)  I  contend  that  in  the  fallen  estate  of  human 
nature  there  is  nothing  in  a  man  except  the  intui- 
tions, strictly  so-called,  or  the  faculties  by  which  we 
perceive  truths,  absolutely  self-evident,  necessary 
and  universal,  that  can  be  safely  used  as  a  final  test 
of  truth. 


APPENDIX.  835 

(3.)  Regenerate  individualism,  used  as  such  a  test, 
and  not  kept  in  constant  and  complete  subordination 
to  the  written  word,  and  to  strictly  self-evident 
truths,  is  an  ignis  fatiius  in  the  domain  of  theology, 
and  has  been  proved  to  be  such  by  the  history  of  re- 
ligious speculation,  age  after  age,  and  recognized  as 
such  in  all  the  noblest  periods  of  religious  thought 
and  activity. 

As  scholars  here  well  know,  Dorner's  principle  of 
making  regenerate  consciousness  a  final  test  of  truth 
was  held  by  Schleiermacher.  The  latter,  on  account 
of  his  teaching  this  principle,  and  in  spite  of  the 
value  of  many  other  parts  of  his  work,  is  justly  re- 
garded by  the  soundest  theologians  in  Scotland,  Eng- 
land, and  America  as  one  of  the  unsafe  leaders  of 
Christian  science.  His  system,  however  brilliant 
in  parts,  has  waned  in  authority  in  Germany  itself 
from  its  tendency  to  mysticism,  obscurity,  arbitrari- 
ness, and  individualistic  error.  The  debate  on  these 
points  is  a  very  old  and  thorough  one  in  Germany. 
The  attempt  to  force  Schleiermacher's  principles  in 
Dorner's  name  upon  circles  well-informed  in  recent 
church  history,  or  in  love  with  a  reverent  biblical 
theology  and  clear  ideas,  is  reactionary  in  a  degree 
as  audacious  as  it  is  unscholarly  and  mischievous. 

Some  German  theologians,  following  the  principle 
that  we  are  not  to  believe  of  God  what  is  revealed  in 
Scripture  and  Nature  so  much  as  what  we  think  to 
be  Christ-like  and  most  worthy  of  God,  have  be- 
come champions  of  Universalism.  To  create  beings 
when  it  is  foreseen  they  are  to  be  lost  forever  is 
not  Christian,  so  these  guides  say,  and,  therefore,  it 


336  APPENDIX. 

must  not  be  supposed  that  any  being  can  so  sin  as 
to  be  lost.  Dorner  has  been  interpreted  as  doubting 
whether  Omniscience  in  creating  souls  foresees  the 
free  acts  which  may  lead  to  their  moral  ruin.  Pro- 
fessor Smyth  thinks  that  the  continuance  of  the  lost 
in  being  is  a  difficulty  in  the  vindication  of  God's 
justice.  It  is  very  significant  that  liberalistic  rajs- 
ticism,  for  this  is  the  true  name  of  the  system  of 
Dorner  and  Schleiermacher,  on  the  points  here  in 
discussion,  agrees  with  liberalistic  rationalism  in  de- 
manding a  religion  more  Christian  than  Christianity, 
and  more  Christ-like  than  Christ. 

It  is  an  amazement  to  me  that  the  Rev.  Dr.  New- 
man Smyth,  in  his  Introduction  to  an  edition  of 
Dorner's  eschatology,  should  say  of  a  chapter  of 
Dorner's,  in  which  he  sets  forth  the  principles  I  have 
now  stated,  and  which  needs  no  condemnation  other 
than  their  statement  that  "  he  knows  of  no  i^assage  in 
modern  theological  literatui'e  so  thoroughly  satisfac- 
tory and  helpful.'"  ^  Without  indorsing  Dorner  at  all 
points,  the  Rev.  Dr.  Newman  Smyth  very  unguard- 
edly says  :  '•''lam  ready  to  maintain  that  the  princi- 
ples ujjon  which  Dorner  proceeds  are  clearly  Chris- 
tian.''' Professor  Smyth,  as  I  understand  him,  while 
not  accepting  Dornerism  "  in  the  lump,"  does  accept 
these  central  principles  of  his  system.  As  a  teacher 
of  ecclesiastical  history,  he  must  know  that  Schleier- 
macher and  Dorner,  great  as  they  are  in  other  re- 
spects, have  a  reputation  for  w^eak  and  mischievous 
teaching  on  these  very  points.  As  to  the  danger  of 
these  utterly  unscientific  principles,  the  dispraise  of 

1  Introduction,  p.  6. 


APPENDIX.  337 

them  and  of  Sclileiermacher  and  Dorner  as  defend- 
ing them,  is  to  be  heard  in  nearly  every  high  quarter 
of  Christian  thought  and  aggressive  evangelical  ef- 
fort. 

The  Rev.  Dr.  Newman  Smyth,  indeed,  while  in- 
troducing Dorner 's  eschatology  to  Americans,  is 
frank  enough  to  say  :  *'  It  is  but  justice  to  Dorner  to 
state  that  this  portion  of  his  work  hardly  equals  in 
strength  and  positiveness  of  results  some  earlier  por- 
tion of  his  system."  ^  The  truth  is,  that  Dorner's 
eschatology,  dispassionately  judged  by  internal  evi- 
dence, is  a  crude  and  hasty  portion  of  a  great  system, 
too  large  for  any  one  man  to  work  out  thoroughly. 
It  is  a  dead  twig  on  a  tree  that  has  many  noble 
branches ;  it  is  a  wen  on  the  face  of  Dorner's  large 
work.  The  attempt  to  cut  off  that  dead  twig  and 
ingraft  it  into  the  tree  of  American  religious 
thought,  the  effort  to  remove  that  wen  from  its 
place  and  plant  it  in  the  fair  face  of  New  England 
theology,  is  a  procedure  which  only  needs  to  be  ex- 
posed to  be  defeated. 

Dorner  holds  that  the  only  sin  which  can  cause 
the  ruin  of  the  soul  is  the  rejection  of  the  historic 
Christ,  as  made  known  in  the  clearest  manner  in  his 
atoning  love  to  the  human  soul,  either  in  this  life  or 
in  the  intermediate  state. 

The  chief  reasons  for  holding  this  is  not  that  it  is 
anywhere  distinctly  stated  in  Scripture,  but  that  it 
is  necessary  to  the  exigencies  of  Dorner's  system  to 
hold  it.  He  does  not  think  it  would  be  Christian  in 
God  to  do  less  than  this  scheme  of  thought  supposes 

1  Introduction,  p.  21. 
22 


338  APPENDIX. 

Him  to  do.  The  divine  justice,  as  well  as  the  divine 
mercy,  requires  that  no  soul  should  be  condemned 
until  in  fullest  light  it  has  rejected  the  historic 
Christ. 

Dorner  asserts,  as  of  course  he  must,  in  harmony 
with  this  scheme  of  thought,  that  no  sin  before 
Christ  can  be  decisive  unbelief.  "  It  does  not,  how- 
ever, follow,"  he  adds,  ''  that  sin  before  Christ  was 
not  in  the  proper  sense  sin;  was  not  laden  with 
guilt  and  punishable  .  .  .  but  from  this  ripeness  for 
eternal  perdition  cannot  proceed."  ^ 

The  fascination  of  this  scheme  of  thought  to  many 
minds  which  do  not  look  beneath  its  surface  is  that 
it  is  put  forward  in  the  name  of  what  we  must  sup- 
pose to  be  Christ-like  in  God,  and  in  that  of  broad 
and  high  ideas  of  the  divine  justice.  All  that  is 
included  in  Dorner's  or  Professor  Smyth's  broadest 
definitions  of  the  Christ-like,  and  of  the  divine  jus- 
tice, is  included  in  the  standard  and  scholarly  systems 
of  theology  in  definitions  of  the  various  divine  at- 
tributes, and,  of  course,  without  the  moral  dangers 
and  intellectual  absurdities  inseparable  from  Dor- 
ner's definition. 

Dorner  holds,  and  so  must  Professor  Smyth,  in 
consistency  with  his  hypothesis,  that  "  free  moral 
personality  can  be  fully  developed  out  of  the  generic 
state  or  race  connection,  and  can  be  finally  self-de- 
termined in  good  or  evil  only  through  the  actual 
choice  or  rejection  of  the  supreme  ethical  good," 
that  is,  of  the  atoning  love  of  the  historic  Christ,  as 
seen  here  or  in  the  intermediate  state.  "  Until  free 
1  Introduction,  p.  20. 


APPENDIX.  339 

self-determination  is  reached  in  view  of  the  final 
good ;  until,  in  the  approach  of  that  supreme  good, 
the  definitive  crisis  comes  to  the  individual,  human 
character  may  indeed  be  sinful  and  worthy  of  pun- 
ishment, but  it  cannot  have  reached  its  final  form 
and  permanence."  This  astounding  doctrine  as  to 
the  development  of  a  free  moral  personality,  and  this 
equally  amazing  assertion  that  no  one  before  Christ, 
or  without  hearing  of  Christ,  can  fix  his  cliaracter 
permanently  in  evil,  no  matter  how  terrible  or  con- 
firmed his  wickedness  may  be,  are  obviously  con- 
trary, not  only  to  the  best  established  principles  of 
ethical,  psychological,  and  even  legal  science,  but  to 
the  plainest  inculcations  of  the  Scriptures  and  com- 
mon sense. 

The  supreme  practical  mischief  of  Dornerism  is 
the  outcome  of  the  positions  of  which  the  philosoph- 
ical and  exegetical  untenability  has  now  been  ex- 
posed. Dorner  promises  a  continued  probation  be- 
yond death,  and  so  indirectly  does  Professor  Smyth's 
working  hypothesis,  not  only  to  all  who  have  in  this 
life  never  heard  of  the  historic  Christ,  but  "  to  all 
who  have  heard  of  him  only  in  a  false,  fragmentary, 
or  otherwise  seriously  imperfect  way."  This  in- 
cludes the  larger  part  of  Christendom  itself.^  Such 
a  promise  as  this  I  do  most  solemnly  and  unquali- 
fiedly pronounce  atrociously  frivolous,  as  well  as 
mischievous.  No  such  promise  as  this,  but  exactly 
its  opposite,  is  contained  in  the  gospels.     It  marks 

1  See  Professor  Smyth's  affirmative  reply  to  my  fourth  qnostion  of 
February  19th,  aud  most  especially  pp.  11-21  of  the  Rev.  Dr.  Smyth's 
Introduction. 


340  APPENDIX. 

this  portion  of  Dornerism  not  only  as  belonging  to 
the  siren  school  of  a  false  liberalism,  but  as  nearly 
equivalent  in  practical  effect  to  Universalism,  and 
as  really  one  of  the  hungriest  whirlpools  of  fascinat- 
ing and  fatal  heresy. 

2.  Ans2vers  to  Professor  Smytlis  questions  :  — 

(1.)  Is  conscience  the  Redeemer?  Is  conscience 
God  ?  No ;  as  the  magnetic  needle  is  not  mag- 
netism ;  but  it  reveals  God,  as  the  needle  reveals  the 
courses  of  the  magnetic  currents. 

(2.)  Does  redemption  mean  the  use  of  the  atone- 
ment? Redemption,  in  its  active  sense,  is  God's 
act,  not  man's ;  but,  in  its  passive  sense,  it  includes 
man's  free  surrender  of  his  soul  to  God  as  both  Sav- 
iour and  Lord.  God  is  ever  ready  to  redeem  all  v^dio 
yield  to  Him,  and  therefore,  in  its  practical  sense, 
redemption  is  limited,  on  account  of  man's  refusal 
to  repent. 

(3.)  What  proof  is  there  that  Dorner's  influ- 
ence has  paralyzed  the  preaching  of  German  state 
churches  ?  My  assertion  was  not  that  Dorner  alone, 
as  an  individual,  has  made  a  large  part  of  the  preach- 
ing of  the  German  state  churches  spiritually  bar- 
ren ;  but  that  the  system  of  eschatological  teaching 
which  he  represents  has  had  that  result.  I  have  not 
affirmed  that  Dorner  originated  this  mischief ;  his 
influence  helps  to  keep  it  up.  It  ought  to  be  well 
known  to  every  professor  of  ecclesiastical  history 
that  Protestantism  in  Germany,  so  far  as  it  is  rep- 
resented by  its  average  churches  and  preaching,  is 
often  spoken  of  by  its  friends  as  a  failure. ^ 

1  See  British  and  Foreign  Evangelical  Review  for  1882. 


APPENDIX.  341 

Professor  Smyth  quotes  a  letter  of  Tholuck,  writ- 
ten to  liim  in  1876,  as  affirming  that  there  has  been 
a  great  improvement  in  the  sph'itiial  condition  of 
Germany  since  the  opening  of  the  century.  I  gladly 
admit  this,  especially  as  to  the  theological  faculties 
of  the  leading  universities,  in  which,  as  I  have  re- 
peatedly pointed  out  in  public,  there  has  been  a  great 
reaction  against  unbelief.  The  improvement  is  not 
so  marked  in  the  pulpits  and  congregations.  But  to 
show  that  darkness  has  diminished  is  not  to  show 
that  day  has  come.  Tliis  same  Professor  Tholuck, 
whom  Professor  Smyth  cites  to  prove  that  the  Ger- 
man state  churches  are  in  a  fairly  good  spiritual 
condition,  once  said  that  if  they  were  separated  from 
the  state  not  a  score  of  them,  in  his  opinion,  would 
be  capable  of  self-support.  In  1871  and  1873,  more 
than  twice  or  thrice  1  heard  this  same  revered  Ger- 
man teacher  lament  with  tears  the  spiritual  ineffi- 
ciency of  the  German  churches,  and  I  heard  Christ- 
lieb  do  this  often  in  1881.  They  by  no  means 
ascribed  the  barrenness  of  the  German  churches 
chiefly  to  their  connection  with  the  state.  German 
churches  fail  to  insist  with  adequate  emphasis  on  fehe 
new  birth,  and  on  present  immediate  urgencies  in 
religion,  such  as  Dorner's  creed  does  not,  and  thor- 
oughly evangelical  creeds  do,  point  out.  *'  Con- 
verted and  unconverted  with  us,"  said  Professor 
Tholuck,  "  are  mixed  pell-mell  together  ;  we  are  all 
members  of  the  Church  after  confirmation,  whether 
Christian  or  not ;  we  have  never  learned  what  Jona- 
than Edwards  and  Whitefield  taught  New  England, 
to  make  a  public  distinction  in  our  churches  between 


342  APPENDIX. 

the  regenerate  and  unregenerate.  That  distinction 
is  of  more  importance  to  American  religious  life  than 
all  your  other  peculiarities  of  church  management." 
I  have  seen  the  empty  state  churches  of  Berlin,  and 
of  many  another  German  city  ;  in  Halle,  in  1871,  I 
looked  in  vain  for  a  prayer-meeting  or  a  Sunday- 
school.  Many  of  the  state  preachers  go  on  from  such 
an  eschatology  as  Dorner's  into  pure  Restorationism. 
I  suppose  Professor  Smyth  will  not  deny  that  Uni- 
versalism  paralyzes  preaching.  At  this  moment  the 
German  state  churches  are  missionary  ground  for  the 
Baptists,  and  the  Methodists,  and  the  Moravians. 

(4.)  What  are  the  essentials  for  ordination?  Ought 
men  who  do  not  accept  the  teaching  of  New  England 
theology  and  the  standards  of  Presbyterian,  Metho- 
dist, Baptist,  Episcopalian,  and  Anglican  churches, 
in  regard  to  eschatology,  to  be  refused  ministerial 
standing  in  the  Congregational  body  ? 

I  have  no  ecclesiastical  position  or  influence,  and 
desire  none.  My  personal  vote  in  the  cases  men- 
tioned by  Professor  Smyth  would  be  governed  by 
the  principles  defended  b^^  Professor  Phelps  in  an 
article  in  "'  The  Independent "  of  May  18th,  and  by 
Professor  Park,  in  an  already  celebrated  address  in 
Boston,  published  in  "  The  Congregationalist  "  of  No- 
vember 8th.  These  Andover  professors  need  no 
justification  for  their  opinion  on  the  points  here  in 
question  but  their  record. 

3.  Professor  SmytKs  obscure  and  confused  propo- 
sitions :  — 

(1.)  Professor  Smyth  gives  this  definition  of  one 
of  the  most  fundamental  terms  in  religious  science. 


APPENDIX.  343 

It  will  be  remembered  that  the  merits  of  a  definition 
are  clearness,  unambiguousness,  and  easy  justifiable- 
ness  by  established  usage.  It  should  contain  no 
metaphorical  language,  nor  any  as  to  the  meaning  of 
which  a  debate  is  possible.  "  Divine  justice,"  says 
Professor  Smyth,  adopting  the  words  of  another,  "  is 
the  self-preserving  honor  of  God,  as  the  absolute, 
ideal,  and  actualizing  law  and  guard  of  all  bestowal 
of  worth."  What  is  bestowal  of  worth  ?  What  is 
the  difference  between  an  absolute,  an  ideal,  and  an 
actualizing  laAV  ?  What  is  a  guard  of  a  bestowal  of 
worth  ?  When  I  read  this  definition  it  reminded  me 
of  the  famous  agnostic  definition  of  matter  given  by 
Professor  Bain :  "  Matter  is  a  doable-faced  some- 
what, physical  on  one  side  and  spiritual  on  the 
other."  What  is  a  side  of  matter  ?  What  is  a  face? 
What  is  a  side  of  a  double  face  ?  What  is  a  what  ? 
What  is  a  somewhat  ?  What  is  a  side  of  a  double 
face  of  a  somewhat?  Herbert  Spencer's  definition 
of  life  came  to  my  mind  :  "  Life  is  a  definite  com- 
bination of  heterogeneous  changes,  both  simultane- 
ous and  successive,  in  correspondence  with  external 
coexistences  and  sequences."  All  these  definitions 
violate  the  first  principles  of  clear  and  definite  think- 
ing, and  seem  to  have  been  constructed  to  support 
foregone  conclusions. 

(2.)  Professor  Smyth  says  that  we  may  not  be 
able  to  construct  a  perfect  Theodicy ;  that  is,  he  ad- 
mits that  we  may  not  be  able  to  construct  a  perfect 
vindication  of  God  in  view  of  the  natural  and  moral 
evil  in  the  universe.  This  is  agnostic  j)essimism  in 
philosophy,  and  is  contrary  to  the  whole  resonance 


344  APPENDIX. 

of  the  Holy  Scriptures  from  their  first  notes  to  the 
last. 

(3.)  Professor  Smyth  says  that  if  any  proposition 
is  "  a  possible  truth,  no  man  has  a  right  to  lay  down 
a  dogma  which  excludes  it."  ''It  is,  at  least,  possi- 
ble," he  affirms,  "  that  Peter  believed  that  the  gos- 
pel was  preached  to  dead  persons,"  that  is,  to  souls 
in  the  intermediate  state,  "that  they  might  live  ac- 
cording to  God  in  the  spirit."  Therefore,  no  man 
has  a  right  to  lay  down  the  dogma  that  probation 
ends  with  this  life.  Here  is  a  most  grave  miscon- 
ception of  the  whole  nature  of  moral  reasoning.  It 
is,  at  least,  possible  that  to-morrow  the  sun  will  not 
rise,  nor  the  earth  be  habitable  by  man  ;  but  I  have 
a  right  to  believe  that  it  will  rise,  and  to  take  it  for 
granted  that  we  shall  have  our  usual  tasks  to  per- 
form to-morrow.  It  is  possible  that  Queen  Victoria 
is  not  living  at  this  moment,  therefore  her  official 
representatives  in  various  parts  of  the  world  have  no 
right  to  speak  in  her  name.  On  all  such  reasoning 
as  this,  men  of  affairs,  as  well  as  scholars,  look  with 
amazement.  It  is,  at  least,  possible  that  Peter  did 
not  teach  that  the  gospel  was  preached  to  spirits  in 
the  intermediate  state,  and,  therefore,  no  man  has  a 
right  to  lay  down  a  dogma  assuming  that  he  did 
teach  this  —  so  we  might  affirm  on  Professor  Smyth's 
principles.  The  truth  tliat  moral  reasoning  consists 
of  a  balance  of  probabilities,  and  that  the  small 
straw  of  one  parenthetical  passage  of  obscure  and 
most  doubtful  interpretation  cannot  be  used  to  check 
the  flow  of  the  central  current  of  biblical  teaching, 
and,  especially,  of  our  Lord's  own  constant  calcula- 


APPENDIX.  845 

tions  in  eschatology,  seems  to  have  escaped  entirely 
from  Professor  Smyth's  attention. 

Grant  the  canonical  authority  of  IT.  Peter,  and 
Professor  Smyth  does  not  attempt  to  deny  it,  and 
in  any  court  of  law  Peter's  controverted  phrases  in 
his  First  Epistle  would  be  interpreted  by  his  second. 
It  is  a  supreme  rule  of  exegetical  science,  that  one 
passage  of  the  Bible  is  not  allowed  to  resist  its  main 
drift,  and  that  the  plain  is  not  to  be  explained  by 
the  obscure. 

4.  His  hazardous  or  heretical  propositions  :  — 

These  are  all  contained  in  what  he  adopts  from 
Dornerism.  He  holds  as  the  best  working  hypothe- 
sis that  not  merely  infants,  idiots,  lunatics,  and  some 
heathen,  but  all  men  who  have  not  heard  of  the  his- 
toric Christ  in  this  life,  or  who  have  only  heard  of 
Plim  in  a  false,  fragmentary,  or  otherwise  seriously 
imperfect  manner,  will  have  a  continued  probation 
in  the  intermediate  state.  He  teaches  that  the  or- 
thodox view,  which  for  ages  in  evangelical  standard 
creeds  has  limited  probation  to  this  life,  is  "  extra- 
Scriptural,"  and  a  "provincialism"  and  "a  mori- 
bund, perishing,  and  transient  formula." 

Professor  Smyth's  propositions  imply  that  the 
heathen  have  not  a  fair  chance  without  a  knowledge 
of  the  atonement.  He  teaches  that  all  who  see 
Christ  as  Judge  will  previously,  either  here  or  here- 
after, have  a  "  knowledge  "  of  Him  as  Redeemer. 
But  Paul  teaches  that  those  who  have  not  the  law, 
that  is,  no  knowledge  of  the  historic  Christ,  shall 
be  judged  without  that  law  "  in  the  day  when  God 
shall   judge   the   secrets  of  men  by  Jesus  Christ." 


846  APPENDIX. 

The  Holy  Scripture  so  magnifies  conscience,  and  the 
light  that  lighteth  every  man  that  cometh  into  the 
world,  that  it  teaches  that  the  heathen  themselves 
are  without  excuse.  Professor  Smyth  so  underrates 
conscience,  and  the  moral  law  revealed  to  all  men 
through  Nature  and  experience,  that  he  does  not 
regard  the  heathen,  who  are  outside  of  Christendom 
or  within  it,  and  have  no  knowledge  of  the  historic 
Christ,  as  without  excuse.  The  heathen  at  home 
are  often  as  bad  as  the  heathen  abroad.  So  great  is 
conscience,  so  unescapable  and  fair  is  man's  proba- 
tion under  the  moral  law  alone,  that  the  apostle 
teaches  that  some  who  have  sinned  without  a  knowl- 
edge of  the  written  law  shall  be  condemned  without 
that  law.  So  does  Professor  Smyth  overlook  con- 
science, and  the  ineffable  majesty  of  the  Divine 
Word  which  it  reveals  to  every  responsible  human 
being,  that  he  teaches,  in  contradiction  not  only  to 
Scripture,  but  to  all  sound  axioms  of  ethical  science, 
that  no  man  can  be  condemned  at  the  Judgment 
Day  for  any  sin  which  he  committed  without  a  knowl- 
edge of  Christ  as  Redeemer. 

5.  His  evasions  :  — 

It  will  be  noticed  that  I  have  answered  all  Pro- 
fessor Smyth's  inquiries.  Seven  definite  questions 
of  mine,  fairly  suggested  by  his  thirty-one  questions, 
to  which  I  have  replied,  he  rules  out  and  refuses  to 
answer.  There  is  no  reply  to  them  in  the  document 
to  which  he  refers  as  written  by  himself  and  his 
colleagues.  The  inquiries  he  rejects  are  precisely 
those  on  which  I  was  the  most  anxious  to  obtain  his 
opinions,  and  on  which,  to  all  appearance,  he  could 


APPENDIX.  347 

not  speak  frankly,  without  serious  logical  embarrass- 
ment. 

6.  His  self-contradictions  :  — 

Professor  Smyth  is  in  a  chair  of  a  theological  in- 
stitution established  to  maintain  precisely  the  oppo- 
site opinions  to  those  represented  by  his  working 
hypothesis  in  eschatology.  His  hypothesis,  although 
only  an  hypothesis,  prevents  his  teaching  the  doc- 
trines of  the  Andover  Seminary  creed  on  these  vital 
points.  It  is  a  rule  of  the  Andover  Seminary  that 
every  professor  shall  signify  his  solemn  assent  to  the 
Seminary  creed  every  five  years.  Nothing  that  Pro- 
fessor Smyth  or  any  one  else  has  published  explains 
this  self-contradiction  in  a  matter  of  the  gravest 
practical  moment. 

7.  Four  final  questions  :  — 

As  a  means  of  directing  attention,  not  to  personal 
issues  of  this  discussion,  but  to  the  large  matter  of 
creed  subscription  in  its  widest  and  most  serious  re- 
lations to  the  health  and  honor  of  the  churches,  I 
put  four  final  questions.  As  Professor  Smyth  fails 
to  answer  nearly  half  of  my  inquiries,  I  put  these  to 
the  friends  of  Andover,  and  especially  to  its  gradu- 
ates, of  whom  it  is  my  fortune  to  be  one,  and  also 
to  the  friends  of  evangelical  Christianity  at  large. 
The  opinion  of  the  honored  trustees  and  visitors  of 
Andover  on  these  points  the  public  would  receive 
with  the  most  careful  consideration  :  — 

(1.)  How  do  they  show  that  a  working  hypothesis, 
such  as  Professor  Smyth  holds,  does  not  prevent  his 
teaching  the  propositions  of  the  Andover  Seminary 
creed  in  relation  to  eschatology  ? 


348  APPENDIX. 

(2.)  How  do  tliey  convince  themselves  that  he 
who  holds  this  working  hypothesis,  and  calls  the  or- 
thodox view  as  to  the  limitation  of  probation  to  this 
life  a  moribund,  perishing,  and  transient  theory,  is 
both  intelHgent  and  honest  in  his  acceptance  of  that 
creed  ? 

(3.)  How  do  they  show  that  in  allowing  such 
views  to  be  taught  at  Andover  as  are  the  opposite  of 
those  which  the  Andover  creed  was  intended  to  sub- 
serve, there  is  not  something  like  a  breach  of  trust 
and  a  perversion  of  funds  ? 

(4.)  What  would  probably  be  the  opinion  of  the 
Sujireme  Court  of  Massachusetts  on  this  matter  as  a 
question  of  law  and  common  equity  ? 


APPENDIX  V. 


A  NIGHT  ON  THE  ACROPOLIS ;  OR,  ART  AND  HIS- 
TORY AT  ATHENS. 

A    LECTUKE    DELIVERED    IN    BOSTON,    NEW    YORK, 
ANDOVER,   AND   IN  VARIOUS    COLLEGE   TOWNS. 

I. 

On  the  night  when  Plato  became  the  pupil  of  Soc- 
rates, the  latter,  according  to  Pausanias,  dreamed 
that  a  white  swan,  rising  from  the  altar  of  Eros,  flew 
into  his  bosom,  and  thence  ascended  to  heaven  with 
a  song  which  delighted  both  gods  and  men. 

Demosthenes,  in  reply  to  his  enemies,  once  boasted 
that  there  were  days  when  Athens  had  but  one 
voice  within  her  walls  ;  and  the  stranger,  entering 
the  gates  and  startled  by  the  silence,  was  told  that 
Demosthenes  was  speaking  in  the  assembly  of  the 
people. 

Were  Plato,  Socrates,  and  Demosthenes  the  only 
forms  visible  from  the  Acropolis,  that  eminence 
would  be  the  loftiest  outlook  on  the  globe  over  hu- 
man intellectual  history.  At  the  west  summit  of 
the  Parthenon  there  is  a  point  from  which  are  visi- 
ble, by  once  turning  the  head,  the  groves  of  Plato's 


350  APPENDIX. 

Academy,  the  daily  haunts  of  Socrates,  the  Pnyx  of 
Demosthenes,  the  grounds  of  the  Lyceum  of  Aristotle, 
the  Mars  Hill  of  Paul,  the  Propylea  of  Phidias  and 
Pericles,  the  Erechtheum,  the  Tower  of  the  Winds, 
the  Panathenaic  Stadium,  the  Olympieum,  the  the- 
atre of  ^schylus,  Sophocles,  and  Eurij^ides,  the  Tem- 
ple of  Theseus,  the  pass  of  Daphne,  the  sacred  road 
to  Eleusis,  the  heights  of  Acro-Corinthus,  Cytherus, 
Parnes,  Pentelicus,  and  Hymettus,  the  plains  of  the 
Cephissus  and  the  Ilissus,  the  harbors  of  Phalerum 
and  the  Pirseus,  the  islands  jEgina,  Psyttalea,  and 
Salamis,  the  mountain  slope  once  the  seat  of  Xerxes, 
the  Phyle  pass  of  Thrasybulus,  the  path  to  the  Mar- 
athon of  Miltiades,  the  Salamis  straits  of  Aristides 
and  Themistocles.  I  confess  that  I  rarely  occupied 
this  outlook  long  without  falling  into  a  trance. 

n. 

One  day,  having  spent  hours  on  the  Acropolis,  I 
sat  in  the  Parthenon,  after  sunset,  looking  on  the 
jagged  ridges  of  the  gnarled,  scorched  islands,  the 
purple  seas,  the  gray,  dusky  olive  groves,  the  faint 
blue,  lilac  Corinthian  and  Argolian  mountains,  and 
on  the  russet  not  yet  wholly  faded  from  the  crystal- 
line, palpitating  silver  of  the  Greek  West.  Even 
the  brown  slope  of  the  semicircle  of  the  Pnyx,  on 
which  the  audiences  of  Demosthenes  and  Pericles  as- 
sembled, took  irradiation  from  the  glowing  sky,  which 
transfigured  by  the  softness  of  its  reflected  light  the 
roseate  white  stateliness  of  the  marbles  of  the  Acrop- 
olis. The  heights  of  Parnes,  the  matchlessly  graceful 
outlines  of  Pentelicus,  the  ridges  of  thirsty  Hymet- 


APPENDIX.  351 

tus,  tlie  grandeur  of  lofty  Cytlierus  gazed  on  tlie 
rustling  Ilissus  and  Cephissus  groves,  the  city,  the 
Parthenon,  and  the  sea.  The  majestic  ruins  were 
silent  about  me.  The  gates  of  the  summit  of  the 
Acropolis  were  shut.  I  had  taken  pains  to  be  com- 
pletely alone.  My  intention  was  to  pass  a  whole 
night  with  the  Parthenon,  walking  on  the  Acropolis 
by  moonlight,  and  beholding  there  the  rising  of  the 
sun.  I  am  to  attempt  now  not  argument,  but  de- 
scription ;  and  this  not  from  memory,  but  almost 
exclusively  from  notes  written  in  Greece  in  presence 
of  the  objects  named ;  nor  is  the  topic  all  Greece,  but 
Art  and  History  at  Athens,  or  a  night  on  the  Acrop- 
olis. Distant  soft  noises  of  children  at  play  came 
up  from  the  city  ;  rumble  of  wheels,  and  occasionally 
strains  of  music.  Suddenly  in  the  gathering  dark- 
ness and  increasing  loneliness,  I  heard  the  sharp 
shrill  cry  of  a  screech-owl,  several  times  repeated 
—  Minerva's  bird  in  Minerva's  temple. 

I  looked  long  on  Salamis  through  the  ruddy  light. 
There  rose  transfigured  in  memory  the  day  when 
Leonidas  and  his  Spartan  heroes  lay  dead  in  the 
pass  of  Thermopylae,  and  the  women  and  children  of 
burnt  Athens,  this  Acropolis  itself  sending  up  flame, 
assembled  on  the  island  to  look  down  from  the  one 
side,  as  Xerxes  and  his  innumerable  host  did  from 
under  Mt.  ^galeos  on  the  other,  upon  the  narrow 
strait  in  which  the  378  Greek  triremes  conquered  the 
1,000  Asiatic.  There  the  deluge  of  an  inferior  but 
haughty  civilization,  cast  thunderous  and  turbid  upon 
Europe,  was  turned  back  by  a  solitary  people,  who 
seemed  to  have  gone  beyond  the  jaws  and  to  have 
descended  into  the  very  throat  of  ruin. 


352  APPENDIX. 

Before  the  battles  of  Maratlion  and  Salamis,  Asia 
predominated  in  the  world's  affairs.  Since  those  con- 
tests, she  has  always  had  a  second  rank.  This  steel 
gray  narrow  sheet  of  murmurous  salt-water  has  been 
thus  visibly  touched  in  human  history  by  that  finger 
at  whose  contact  the  hills  melt  and  the  mountains 
smoke  ;  and,  therefore,  even  after  2,300  years,  the 
waves  flash  here,  between  the  bleak  rocky  shores, 
with  a  light  better  than  that  of  the  sun.  Greek  civil- 
ization, on  that  great  day  when  the  women  on  Sala- 
mis, according  to  the  prophecy,  boiled  their  meat 
with  broken  oars,  was  in  process  of  preservation  for 
you  and  for  me  ;  and  among  the  corpses  which  shut 
the  moonlight  from  the  depths  of  this  clear  water  on 
the  night  after  the  battle,  the  plans  of  Providence 
for  the  education  of  Rome,  of  London,  of  Paris,  and 
of  Boston  were  advancing. 

^schylus  fought  in  the  triremes  at  Salamis. 
Sophocles,  a  mere  boy,  danced  at  the  festival  held  on 
the  island  in  honor  of  the  victory.  Euripides  was 
born  there.  Demosthenes,  exiled  to  the  island,  used 
to  walk  down  to  the  shore  at  sunset  to  look  toward 
the  Pnyx,  the  Acropolis,  and  the  Parthenon.  From 
the  place  where  he  stood,  I  have  counted  with  a  field 
glass  the  pillars  of  the  Parthenon,  eight  miles  away. 
Except  for  ^gina,  twelve  miles  to  the  south  of  Sala- 
mis, I  could  have  seen  the  island  of  Calauria,  where 
Demosthenes  passed  from  the  world,  as  Aristotle,  on 
Euboea,  out  of  sight  beyond  the  blue  cone  of  Penteli- 
cus,  ceased  to  breathe.  Aristotle  and  Demosthenes 
died  October  14,  B.  c.  322.  It  was  my  experience 
even  in  Athens  that  this  remarkable  date  seemed  to 
close  Greek  history. 


APPENDIX.  853 

As  I  looked  from  my  seat  in  the  Parthenon  toward 
Salamis,  a  light,  the  first  of  the  evening,  flashed  out 
on  the  left  of  the  small,  conical,  rocky  hill  yet  called 
Xerxes'  seat.  It  shone  from  the  light-house  on  the 
little  gray  island  of  Psyttalea,  where  Aristides,  in  the 
battle  of  Salamis,  exhibited  in  a  land  contest  a  brav- 
ery and  an  intellectual  skill  not  unlike  that  shown  by 
Themistocles  on  the  sea. 

Over  the  five  miles  of  the  line  of  the  ancient,  long 
walls,  connecting  Athens  with  the  Pirseus,  roared 
and  flashed  martially  a  railway  train,  passing  to  and 
fro  every  hour  through  the  fenceless  and  hedgeless 
vineyards,  the  scattered  olives,  and  wild  flowers,  red, 
beautiful,  and  abundant  enough  to  have  been  nour- 
ished each  by  a  drop  of  the  old  Greek  blood  shed  so 
often  on  this  Athenian  plain.  The  small,  graceful, 
swift  fishing  boats  with  white  triangular  sails  ;  the 
numerous  fleet,  and  compact,  animated  streets  of  the 
Pirseus  ;  this  imperial  movement  of  the  trains  across 
ground  so  imperial  in  history,  give  life  to  the  else  sol- 
itary straits. 

The  island  of  Salamis,  a  mile  from  the  Attic  shore, 
is  only  ten  miles  long  by  two  or  three  broad.  It  is 
as  a  whole  a  treeless  pasture,  although  there  are 
thinly  chistered  olives  and  figs  on  its  three  or  four 
flat  quarters  and  a  few  stunted  Aleppo  pines  in  the 
thirsty  ravines  of  its  fifteen  or  twenty  mountain 
spikes  and  bosses.  Toothed  Salamis  I  call  it,  as  I 
look  on  its  sharp  limestone  ridges  from  Athens.  Mur- 
murous Salamis  one  might  call  it,  on  the  island  itself, 
listening  either  to  the  green  and  purple  waves  ;  to 
the  bees  in  the  odorous,  abundant  wild  thyme  ;  or  to 

•23 


354:  APPENDIX. 

tlie  voices  of  the  historical  multitude  of  souls  that  fill 
the  spiritual  air. 

m. 

There  were  yet  two  hours  before  the  moon  was 
to  rise  above  Hym.ettus.  A  characteristically  Greek 
clearness  was  in  the  night.  A  bat  flew  between  the 
columns.  The  sharp  tones  of  the  petulant  kestrels, 
birds  resembling  small  hawks  and  which  hang  above 
the  Parthenon  by  day  in  summer,  were  silent.  The 
stroke  of  a  mellow  bell  came  from  the  distance.  I 
heard  the  owl  again,  not  far  away.  The  strong  sea 
breeze  little  by  little  grew  wholly  still.  The  subtle 
influence  of  loneliness,  of  twilight,  and  of  the  tran- 
scendently  great  memories,  began  to  act  on  the  im- 
agination. The  air  was  fuller  of  historic  presences 
than  it  had  lately  been  of  sunbeams. 

Looking  up  between  the  massive  whiteness  of  the 
columns  of  the  Parthenon,  I  saw  the  large  and  small 
stars  coming  forth  in  the  infinite  depths  of  the  un- 
lighted  Greek  sky.  Instantly  Salamis  and  even  the 
Acropolis  were  forgotten  as  a  sentence  of  Euripides 
passed  through  my  thoughts  :  — 

"  Seest  thou  the  abyss  of  sky  that  hangs  above  thee, 
And  clasps  the  earth  around  in  moist  embrace, 
This  to  be  Jove  believe,  this  deem  thou  God." 

So  Newton  taught,  of  course  with  variations.  So  too, 
with  unimportant  changes,  teaches  the  subtlest  mod- 
ern inquiry.  Space  and  Time,  themselves,  like  noth- 
ing created,  omnipresent,  infinite,  eternal,  necessarily 
existent,  are  perhaps  only  modes  of  manifestation  of 
Omnipresence  and  Self  -  existence.     Not  the  ocean, 


APPENDIX.  355 

therefore,  not  the  sun,  no  galaxy  of  stars,  is  the  sub- 
limest  natural  object,  but  rather  the  literally  infinite 
depth  of  Space,  unfathomable  by  thought,  and  per- 
haps but  a  robe  of  an  Omnipresence  uncomprehended, 
unapprehended,  and  best  spoken  of  by  the  silence, 
and  the  conscientious  daily  deeds,  of  ineffable  awe. 
I  lay  down  in  the  west  portico,  looking  up  between 
the  roofless  shafts  and  capitals,  and  for  an  hour 
hardly  remembered  that  I  was  in  Greece,  and  yet 
perhaps  was  never  more  truly  there. 

Euripides,  at  one  angle  of  this  Acropolis  in  the 
theatre,  and  Paul  at  another  angle  on  Mars  Hill, 
were  on  one  point  hardly  farther  removed  from  each 
other  in  their  teaching  than  were  the  spots  where 
they  taught. 

The  truth  that  God  dwelleth  not  in  temples  made 
with  hands  seemed  to  sound  from  the  familiar,  un- 
comprehended constellations,  as  well  as  from  the  his- 
toric presences  not  wholly  invisible  in  the  starlight 
on  Mars  Hill. 

What  a  speech  was  that  of  Saul  of  Tarsus,  when,  in 
presence  of  this  transfigured  Parthenon,  of  the  three 
statues  of  the  three  Minervas  on  the  Acropolis,  of 
the  far-flashing  marbles  of  the  Propylea,  of  the  route 
of  the  Panathenaic  procession  which  ended  at  the 
temple  of  Minerva,  of  the  Agora  and  North  and  South 
city  of  Athens  crowded  with  statues  of  deities,  of  the 
Pnyx  where  prayer  to  gods  preceded  every  popular 
assembly,  and  votive  tablets  to  Jupiter  Hypsistos 
clothed  the  else  naked  rock,  of  the  cave  of  the  Furies, 
of  statues  of  Hermes,  Earth,  and  Pan  almost  within 
touch,  and  of  an  audience  educated  by  immemorial 


8ob  APPENDIX. 

^s^orship  of  entempled  gods,  lie  proclaimed,  looking 
on  these  mountains,  these  islands,  this  sky,  and  this 
sea,  that  God,  who  made  heaven  and  earth,  dwelleth 
not  in  temples  made  with  hands  !  In  a  sea  of  tem- 
ples, its  waves  toppling  with  mortal  threats  above 
his  head,  a  solitary  swimmer,  a  stranger,  a  Jew, 
clings  to  the  assertion  that  God  dwelleth  not  in  tem- 
ples ;  and  that  assertion,  after  1,800  years,  rides  out 
the  hurricane. 

Even  upon  the  Academy  among  the  Cephissus 
olives  with  Plato's  grave  near  it,  or  upon  the  Lyceum 
on  the  Ilissus  where  Aristotle  founded  an  intellectual 
kingdom,  no  such  historic  dignity  has  been  conferred 
as  upon  the  gnarled  rock  of  Mars  Hill.  It  is  much 
to  say  of  any  object  that  it  is  large  and  lofty  enough 
to  be  seen  across  the  vaporous  horizons  of  nineteen 
centuries  by  the  masses  of  only  ordinarily  educated 
men.  Such  an  object,  however,  is  this  reddish  gray 
limestone  ridge  of  the  Areopagus,  while  Pnyx  and 
Propylea,  Acropolis,  and  even  the  Parthenon,  have 
long  ago  ceased  to  be  commandingly  visible  to  the 
many,  through  the  dim  mists  of  the  far  skies. 

Sixteen  steps,  each  six  feet  and  a  half  long,  are 
cut  in  the  south  east  face  of  the  rock  of  Mars  Hill, 
which  projects  from  the  northwest  corner  of  the 
Acropolis,  only  a  narrow  interval  dividing  it  from  the 
Propylea  stairs.  It  is  about  ten  rods  long  at  the  top, 
and  is  scarred  on  its  west  slopes  with  many  ancient, 
square  cuttings  in  the  rock  for  the  basements  of  the 
otherwise  traceless,  but  once  numerous,  Athenian 
houses.  Its  elevation  is  not  over  eighty  or  ninety 
feet ;  its  breadth  varies  from  one  hundred  to  three 


APPENDIX.  357 

hundred  and  fifty.  Its  length  lies  nearly  east  and 
west,  and  the  seat  of  the  Areopagus  was  at  the  east, 
which  was  considerably  the  higher  end.  Two  quad- 
rangular shallow  spaces,  each  about  twenty-five  feet 
long  and  ten  wide,  the  upper  one  nearly  four  feet  the 
higher  in  its  level,  are  smoothed  in  the  rock  at  the 
summit  of  the  ridge,  and  receive  the  stairs  up  which 
probably  Paul  walked  from  the  central  public  square 
just  below,  and  in  which  his  discussions  had  begun. 
Salamis,  Cytherus,  Pa.rnes,  Pentelicus,  a  part  of  Hy- 
mettus,  of  the  Parthenon,  and  of  the  sea,  were  in 
view.  In  a  strong  favoring  wind  an  arrow  could  be 
shot  from  Mars  Hill  to  the  Bema  in  the  Pnyx  where 
Demosthenes  stood,  or  into  the  prison  in  which  Soc- 
rates is  thought  to  have  drunk  the  hemlock,  or  against 
the  shield  of  Minerva  as  she  once  watched  colossal 
above  the  Acropolis. 

IV. 

I  rose  at  last  and  walked  to  and  fro  in  the  Cella  in 
front  of  the  temple,  and  took  a  seat  in  the  east  por- 
tico, watching  the  now  visibly  upstretching  aurora 
of  the  light  yet  beneath  the  verdureless  upper  ridge 
of  Hymettus.  I  was  once  on  the  limestone  rubble 
and  among  the  heavily  odorous  wild  thyme  of  the 
lower  slope  of  Hymettus  as  the  sun  went  down,  and 
heard  the  hum  of  the  bees,  which  make  the  honey 
celebrated  in  poetry  now  for  twenty  centuries,  grow 
still,  as  the  sea-breeze  and  the  daylight  died  away  to- 
gether. 

A  bugle  sounded  now  at  intervals  from  the  cit}^  ; 
while  occasionally  one  Greek  male  voice,  more  im- 


358  APPENDIX. 

pressive  than  the  instrument,  sang  in  a  house  not  far 
from  the  base  of  the  Acropolis. 

I  gazed  long  from  the  Parthenon  on  the  growing 
illumination  of  the  east,  and  thought  of  the  invisible 
Marathon  plain,  twenty -two  miles  away  to  the  north- 
east be3'ond  Pentelicus,  on  whose  solitary,  breathless 
upper  marble  ravines  the  ghostly  light  had  already 
risen.  In  the  lonelineiss  and  majesty  of  the  outlook, 
it  was  natural  to  remember  the  Greek  devout  belief, 
two  hundred  years  after  the  battle  of  Marathon,  that 
at  midnight  there  were  to  be  heard  on  the  plain 
sounds  of  horses  with  spears  in  their  breasts  and  the 
confused  noise  of  contending  men  of  arms. 

The  Marathon  plain  is  a  crescent,  one  mile  deep 
and  six  miles  in  length,  stretching  along  a  crescent 
bay.  The  tips  of  the  horned  plain  are  marsh.  Seen 
from  the  triremes  of  the  Asiatics  as  they  approached 
the  east  side,  the  flat  space  looked  broad  enough  for 
a  battle  line  six  miles  long.  Once  on  the  spot,  the 
invaders  found  a  great  marsh  under  the  greenness  of 
the  tall  rushes  north  of  them,  and  a  small  marsh 
shut  in  by  the  flaming  oleanders,  agnus  vitse,  prickly 
hedges  of  rock-rose,  and  stunted  pines  to  the  south, 
so  that  there  was  only  room  enough  for  a  two  miles 
line. 

Ten  thousand  Athenians  and  Plateaus  lay  at  the 
edge  of  the  low,  and  now  thinly  wooded,  gray  and 
green,  furzy  limestone  mountains,  which  rise  a  mile 
and  a  half  and  two  miles  from  the  sea.  Fifty,  sixty, 
or,  as  some  think,  an  hundred  thousand  Asiatics,  took 
position  on  the  sandy,  giassy,  and  now  partly  culti- 
vated plain,  their  ships  on  the  smooth  beach,  or  at 


APPENDIX.  359 

anchor  in  the  green  and  purple  of  the  sea  toward 
Euboea. 

Nine  days  the  ten  thousand  looked  at  the  sixty- 
thousand.  Five  Athenian  generals  advised  battle  ; 
five  dissuaded  from  an  engagement ;  but  the  famous 
casting  vote  of  Callimachus  —  our  cause  at  stake  — 
gave  Miltiades  on  the  tenth  day  opportunity  to  exe- 
cute his  daring  plan  of  supplying  the  deficiency  of 
his  numbers  by  the  momentum  of  a  swift  onset. 

The  ground  over  which  the  two  miles  front  of  the 
Greek  line  approached  on  a  run  the  bowmen  of  the 
enemy  in  order  to  avoid  the  second,  or  at  latest  the 
third  or  fourth  discharge  of  arrows,  is  nearly  level. 
It  is  often  represented  as  a  slope  by  historians  who 
have  not  visited  the  spot.  When  I  sat  at  the  sum- 
mit of  the  mound  raised  over  the  one  hundred  and 
ninety -two  of  the  Greek  slain,  a  monument  now 
only  thirty-five  feet  high,  and,  as  I  found  by  meas- 
urement at  the  base,  one  hundred  and  sixty-six  paces 
in  circumference,  the  brown  and  green  sods  where 
that  famous  quickstep,  the  beginning  of  the  indepen- 
dence of  Europe,  first  shook  the  rough  grass,  were 
not  above  the  level  of  my  eyes.  The  course  over 
which  the  ten  thousand  charged  an  enemy  until  then 
never  conquered,  and  outnumbering  the  Greeks  six 
to  one,  descends  only  about  thirty-five  feet  in  half  a 
mile. 

The  left  of  the  Asiatics  was  soon  plunged  into  the 
small,  south  marsh,  and  the  right  into  the  great, 
north,  reedy  slough.  But  the  thin  centre  of  the 
Athenian  line  receded  somewhat  near  this  mound, 
until  the  victorious  Greek  wings  closed  upon  the 
flanks  of  the  Persian  centre. 


360  APPENDIX. 

The  north  wmd  which  moaned  over  the  sometimes 
bare  sand,  the  scanty,  brown,  dry  grass,  and  the  scat- 
tered thorny  bushes  at  the  flattened  top  of  the  easy 
slopes  of  this  mound,  now  more  than  2,300  years  old, 
and  the  most  venerable  battle  memorial  in  the  world, 
seemed  to  ring,  when  I  sat  there,  with  the  twang 
of  the  bowstrings  and  the  rustling  of  the  smiting 
shields  and  breaking  spears  which  drove  Asia  out  of 
Europe ;  while  on  the  white,  sounding,  pebbly  shore, 
a  half  mile  distant,  to  which  the  host  of  the  Medes 
was  forced  back,  one  could  with  small  effort  yet 
see,  among  the  flaming  oleanders,  the  glance  of  the 
hatchet  which  cut  off  the  hand  of  the  Athenian  who 
attempted  to  capture  an  eighth  ship  after  seven  had 
been  taken. 

But,  more  distinctly  than  any  other  historic  vision, 
could  be  descried  that  burnished  shield  held  aloft  on 
one  of  the  gray  spiked  summits  toward  Athens,  as  an 
invitation  to  the  Asiatic  fleet  to  sail  around  Cape 
Sunium  and  attack  the  defenceless  city.  An  Ameri- 
can on  the  battle-field  of  Marathon,  if  he  understands 
what  secession  was  in  his  own  country,  ought  of  all 
men  to  be  the  quickest  to  notice  this  traitorous  sig- 
nal of  the  Athenian  friends  of  the  Mede,  in  their  ex- 
hibition of  that  spirit  of  secession  and  division  which 
finally  ruined  Greece. 

The  swift  march  of  the  victorious  Greek  army 
back  to  Athens  on  the  day  of  the  battle  saved  the 
city  from  the  fleet,  and  was  the  first  act  in  the  yet 
unrolling  history  of  unsubjugated  Europe.  When, 
with  five  mounted  soldiers  and  five  on  foot,  as  a 
guard  against  the  lately  murderous  Turkish  brigands, 


APPENDIX.  361 

I  rode  over  the  twenty-two  miles  of  rougli  ground, 
mountain  spurs,  and  sand}^  plain  covered  with  brown 
grass,  arbutus,  dwarf-pine,  agnus  vitse,  rock-rose,  and 
odorous  thyme,  througli  which  that  march  of  wearied 
but  invincible  free  citizens  of  what  then  was  the 
only  free  city  on  the  earth  took  its  anxious  course, 
every  inch  of  the  way  flashed  with  a  light  of  history 
not  too  brightl^r  symbolized  by  the  cool  Greek  morn- 
ing, with  its  floods  of  solar  fire  on  land  and  sea. 


At  this  point  of  my  thoughts,  the  moon  began  to 
rise  upon  Athens.  Suddenly  there  appeared  above 
gray  Hymettus  the  upper  edge  of  the  same  disc 
which  Plato,  Aristotle,  Demosthenes,  and  Pericles 
saw  cutting  this  same  mountain  line.  As  seen  from 
my  position,  the  palpitant,  silvei*  and  yellow  globe 
came  up  between  the  two  south  columns  of  the  east 
front  of  the  Parthenon.  I  was  alone  with  the  nearly 
level,  soft,  but  full  radiance  poured  upon  the  most 
famous  marbles  of  all  time. 

I  had  studied  the  Parthenon  by  the  light  of  morn- 
ing, in  the  almost  torrid  blaze  of  the  Greek  summer 
noons,  and  at  twilight,  I  now  found,  as  I  had  ex- 
pected, that  I  had  not  seen  its  greatest  glory,  and 
that  the  Parthenon  puts  forth  its  chief  enchantment 
only  at  midnight,  in  solitude,  and  by  the  moon. 

Certainly  its  symmetry  and  strength  balanced 
each  other  now  as  perfectly  as  ever ;  the  proportions 
given  to  the  marbles  continued  to  move  me,  as  they 
always  had  done,  much  as  does  the  harmony  given 
to  sound  in  a  great  anthem. 


362  APPENDIX. 

But  now,  as  never  by  day,  the  ravages  of  time 
were  concealed  ;  a  new  aerialness  and  spirituality 
born  of  the  new  light,  and  a  new  solemnity  born  of 
the  new  hour,  clothed  the  marbles  with  additional 
beauty  and  grace,  until  the  temple  seemed,  not  celes- 
tial indeed,  but  worthy  to  have  been  made  by  the 
best  of  the  Greek  gods  in  their  happiest  hours. 

I  walked  slowly  among  the  32  columns  remaining 
erect  out  of  the  original  46,  and  along  the  228  feet 
of  the  length  and  the  101  of  the  breadth,  and  around 
the  entire  ruin  ;  and  finally  stood  at  a  distance  from 
the  southeast  corner  with  my  back  to  the  moon,  and 
looking  upon  the  whole,  restoring  in  thought  the  92 
figures  of  the  metopes,  the  triglyphs,  the  marble  rain- 
drops; the  subdued  delicate  coloring  on  the  stars  un- 
der the  roof  and  still  visible  on  some  of  the  traceries 
of  the  mouldings;  the  34;^  feet  of  height  and  6^  of 
diameter  of  each  column ;  the  shields  and  wreaths 
of  victory  on  their  yet  traceable  places  among  the 
weather  stains  of  the  east  front;  the  525  feet  of  the 
Panathenaic  frieze,  the  great  statue  of  Minerva  in 
the  Cella,  the  matchless  Phidian  groups  of  the  birth 
of  Minerva  from  the  head  of  Jove  to  the  east,  and  of 
the  contest  of  Minerva  with  Neptune  for  the  posses- 
sion of  Attica  to  the  west  pediment;  the  crowded 
sculptures  to  the  whole  open  ground  of  the  summit 
of  the  Acropolis,  the  Greeks  and  foreigners  of  the 
Periclean  age  to  the  walls  behind  the  columns.  As- 
suredly the  Parthenon  in  solitude,  at  midnight,  and 
by  the  moon  was  the  most  beautiful  human  work  I 
ever  beheld.  The  Doric  stands  by  sunlight,  but 
floats  by  moonlight. 


APPENDIX.  363 

What  Plato  wrote  over  tlie  door  of  his  house  ought 
to  be  written  over  the  Portico  of  the  Parthenon : 
Let  no  one  enter  here  who  does  not  understand  ge- 
ometry. 

It  is  amazing  that  the  delicate  optical  corrections 
applied  to  the  architecture  of  the  Parthenon  were 
never  discovered  in  modern  times  until  1837.  My 
first  act  on  my  first  visit  to  the  Parthenon  was  to 
place  my  opera-glass,  stretched  to  a  height  of  seven 
inches,  at  one  end  of  the  upper  step  of  the  east  front, 
and  to  look  toward  it  with  the  eye  at  a  level  with 
the  surface  of  the  step  101  feet  distant  at  the  other 
end.  I  could  not  see  the  glass,  because  the  appar- 
ently level  floor  is  not  a  straight  line,  but  a  delicate 
curve  rising  some  eight  inches  in  the  middle.  I  no- 
ticed repeatedly  the  same  curvature  on  studying  the 
upper  step  of  the  west  front.  There  is  not  a  straight 
line  in  the  Parthenon.  The  finer  sense  of  beauty 
possessed  by  the  Greeks  led  them  to  perceive,  as 
modern  architects  until  fifty  years  ago  had  hardly 
done,  that  when  inclined  and  horizontal  lines  of  con- 
siderable length  are  closely  contrasted  with  each 
other,  as  they  are  in  the  floor  and  the  columns,  and 
especially  in  the  base  and  slope  of  the  triangle  of  the 
gable  edges  of  the  Parthenon,  they  look  curved  if 
made  perfectly  straight,  and  appear  straight  if  they 
are  delicately  curved.  Accordingly  the  line  of  the 
base  of  the  gable  and  of  the  top  of  the  steps  is  slightly 
convex  ;  all  the  outer  pillars  lean  a  little  inward ;  the 
columns  would  meet  at  a  great  height  above  the  Par- 
thenon, if  indefinitely  prolonged  ;  the  outer  edges  of 
all  the  flutings  are  convex  curves,  as  I  saw  again  and 


364  APPENDIX. 

again  by  looking  along  the  edge  of  a  fluting  from  the 
base ;  and  yet  every  one  of  these  lines  at  a  distance 
appears  straight. 

It  will  be  found  that  a  long  straight  line  always 
appears  bent  when  a  long  curved  line  is  drawn 
near  it. 

The  tangent  to  a  large  circle  seems  to  be  bent 
away  from  the  curvature  of  the  circle.  The  chord 
of  a  circle  appears  distorted  by  the  arc.  In  the  tri- 
angle of  the  pediment  of  a  Greek  temple,  the  long 
sloping  line  of  the  roof,  and  the  long  horizontal  line 
of  the  base,  have  nearly  the  same  relation  to  each 
other  as  the  arc  of  a  circle  and  its  chord. 

The  Medelaine,  at  Paris,  sometimes  superficially 
said  to  be  constructed  on  the  plan  of  the  Parthenon, 
is  built  with  straight  lines,  and  every  one  of  its  longer 
dimensions  appears  slightly  distorted,  according  to 
this  law.  I  have  looked  across  the  steps  of  the  front 
and  found  them  perfectly  level ;  but  the  steps  at  a 
distance  appear  as  if  sunken  six  or  eight  inches  at 
the  centre.  The  lower  line  of  the  gable  of  the  Mad- 
eleine is  horizontal,  but  appears  concave,  as  it  would 
not  do  if  it  had  been  made  slightly  convex. 

A  young  English  architect,  Pennethorne,  shutting 
himself  up  in  the  Parthenon  week  after  week,  in 
1837,  discovered  the  subtle  laws  of  its  structure. 
German  architects  noticed  them  the  next  year.  The 
elaborate  work  of  Penrose  on  Athenian  architecture 
has  now  described  them  with  mathematical  accuracy. 
A  most  important  passage  of  Vitruvius,  once  poorly 
understood,  is  at  last  unlocked.  It  unlocks  the  Par- 
thenon.    "  The  stylobate,"  says  this  military  engi- 


APPENDIX.  365 

neer  of  Julius  Csesar,  "  ought  not  to  be  constructed 
upon  the  horizontal  level,  but  should  rise  gradually 
from  the  ends  toAvard  the  centre,  so  as  to  leave  there 
a  small  addition.  The  inconvenience  which  might 
arise  from  a  stylobate  thus  constructed  may  be  ob- 
viated by  means  of  unequal  scamilli.  If  the  line  of 
the  stylobate  were  perfectly  horizontal,  it  would  ap- 
pear like  the  bed  of  a  channel.  In  placing  the  capi- 
tals upon  the  shafts  of  the  columns,  they  are  not  to 
be  arranged  so  that  the  abaci  may  be  in  the  same 
horizontal  level,  but  must  follow  the  direction  of  the 
upper  members  of  the  epistylium,  which  will  deviate 
from  the  straight  line  drawn  from  the  extreme  parts 
in  proportion  to  the  addition  given  to  the  centre  of 
the  stylobate."  "  The  columns  at  the  angles,  as  well 
as  those  which  are  intended  to  be  placed  in  the 
fianks,  should  have  their  axes  inclined  so  that  the 
faces  next  the  walls  of  the  Cella  may  become  perpen- 
dicular to  the  stylobate." 

I  was  never  weary  of  studying  these  optical  cor- 
rections and  refinements,  unrecognized  for  centuries 
in  both  the  theory  and  practice  of  the  grosser  mod- 
ern mind,  although  here  articulately  described  by 
Vitruvius,  and  displayed  everywhere  in  the  Parthe- 
non as  a  part  of  the  artistic  requirements  of  the 
more  refined  instinct  of  the  ancient  Greek  mind,  the 
subtlety  and  delicacy  of  which  they  exhibit  to  the 
humiliation  of  this  latest  century,  and  as  almost 
nothing  else  does,  outside  the  severest  analyses  of 
Aristotle,  the  most  ingenious  of  the  dialogues  of 
Plato,  and  the  best  orations  of  Demosthenes. 


366  APPENDIX. 


VI. 

I  was  yet  to  see  tlie  illumination  of  the  Parthenon 
at  midnight,  by  the  high  and  the  westering  moon, 
by  morning  twilight,  and  by  sunrise.  While  wait- 
ing for  these  scenes,  I  found  not  an  object  in  the 
great  outlook  that  did  not  draw  nearer  by  night  than 
by  day.  Lycabettus,  Hymettus,  Pentelicus,  Parnes, 
Salamis,  ^gina,  the  pass  of  Daphne,  the  groves  of 
the  Cephissus  and  Ilissus,  the  slopes  of  the  Museum 
Hill  and  of  the  Pnyx,  the  theatre,  the  pillars  of  the 
Temple  of  Jupiter,  could  be  read  better  than  ob- 
scurely in  the  mild  light ;  but  the  history  of  all  these 
sounded  in  the  now  hushed  air  more  audibly  than 
ever  at  noon.  Nor  did  the  newest  Athens  itself  fail 
to  send  its  keen  breath  to  the  heights  of  the  Par- 
thenon. 

I  leaned  over  the  parapet  of  the  Acropolis,  on  the 
side  toward  the  modern  city,  and  looked  in  vain  for 
the  print  of  that  Venetian  leprous  sandal  and  that 
Turkish  hoof  which  for  six  hundred  years  trod  Greece 
into  the  slime.  In  the  long  bondage  to  the  barba- 
rian, the  Hellenic  spirit  was  weakened,  but  not  bro- 
ken. The  Greek,  with  his  fine  texture,  loathes  the 
stolid,  opaque  greasiness  of  the  Turkish,  polygamistic 
temperament.  Intermarriages  between  the  races 
were  very  few.  In  spite  of  the  theory  of  Fallmerayer, 
—  whose  name,  as  an  authority  for  the  assertion  that 
the  Greek  race  is  extinct,  puts  any  scholar  of  Athens 
into  a  rage,  —  it  must  be  said  that  the  modern  Greek 
blood  is  more  than  half  Hellenic.  Only  the  Hel- 
lenic blood  explains  Hellenic  countenances,  yet  easily 


APPENDIX.  367 

found ;  tlie  Hellenic  language,  yet  wonderfully  un- 
corrupt ;  and  the  Hellenic  spirit,  omnipresent  in  lib- 
erated Greece. 

Forty  years  ago  not  a  book  could  be  bought  at 
Athens.  To-day  one  in  eighteen  of  the  whole  popu- 
lation of  Greece  is  in  school.  Fifty  years  of  inde- 
pendence, and  the  Hellenic  spirit  has  doubled  the 
population  of  Greece,  increased  her  revenues  five 
hundred  per  cent.,  extended  telegraphic  communica- 
tion over  the  kingdom,  enlarged  the  fleet  from  440 
to  5,000  vessels,  opened  eight  ports,  founded  eleven 
new  cities,  restored  forty  ruined  towns,  changed 
Athens  from  a  hamlet  of  hovels  to  a  city  of  60,000 
inhabitants,  and  planted  there  a  royal  palace,  a  Leg- 
islative Chamber,  six  type  foundries,  fort}^  printing 
establishments,  twenty  newspapers,  an  astronomical 
observatory,  and  a  university,  with  fifty  professors 
and  twelve  hundred  students.  King  Otho's  German 
court,  wlien  he  came  from  Nauplia  to  Athens  in 
1835,  lived  at  first  in  a  shed  that  kept  out  neither 
the  rain  nor  the  north  wind.  On  Constitution  Place, 
in  Athens,  in  1843,  the  Hellenic  spirit,  without  vio- 
lence, and  by  the  display  of  force  for  but  a  few 
hours,  substituted  for  personal  power  in  Greece  a 
constitutional  government  as  free  as  that  of  Eng- 
land. George  Finlay,  the  historian  of  the  Greek 
Revolution,  and  who  fought  in  it,  affirms  that,  even 
before  that  event,  degraded  as  the  people  were  po- 
litically, a  larger  proportion  could  read  and  write 
than  among  any  other  Christian  race  in  Europe. 
Undoubtedly  long  bondage,  acting  on  the  native 
adroitness  of  the  race,  taught  the  Greeks  disingen- 


368  APPENDIX. 

iiousness,  —  the  old  blood  j)roduced  an  Alcibiades  as 
well  as  a  Socrates,  a  Cleon  as  well  as  a  Pliocion  ; 
there  was  in  it,  as  in  American  veins  to-day,  a  ten- 
dency to  social,  commercial,  and  political  sharp-deal- 
ing. But,  after  fifty  years  of  independence,  the  Hel- 
lenic spirit  devotes  a  larger  percentage  of  public  rev- 
enue to  purposes  of  instruction  than  France,  Italy, 
England,  Germany,  or  even  the  United  States.  Mod- 
ern Greece,  fifty  years  ago  a  slave  and  a  beggar,  to- 
day, by  the  confession  of  the  most  merciless  statisti- 
cians, stands  at  the  head  of  the  list  of  self-educated 
nations. 

Railways,  as  even  the  less  sanguine  at  Athens 
now  hope,  must  at  no  very  distant  period  cut  the 
Isthmus  of  Corinth  and  the  green,  fat  Boeotian  plain, 
and  bring  the  western  Patras  and  northern  Larissa 
into  communication  with  Athens.  Possibly  the  Pi- 
rasus,  or  Cape  Sunium,  and  not  Brindisi,  may  one  day 
become  the  point  of  departure  from  Europe  of  mails 
to  the  East  from  London,  Berlin,  and  St.  Petersburg. 
Greece  desires  to  connect  a  Larissa  railway  with  a 
Turkish  railway  soon  to  pierce  the  iron  gates  of  the 
Danube. 

Politically  impracticable  as  the  aspiration  may 
appear,  the  omnipresent  Hellenic  whispered  idea  is 
that  Greece  must  ultimately  possess  Constantinople. 
England,  with  selfish  and  self-complacent  sneers  on 
her  lips,  and  fear  of  Russia  in  her  heart,  often  super- 
ficially ridicules  this  scheme,  w^hich  America  regards 
with  sympathy.  William  Pitt  said,  in  1792,  that 
the  true  doctrine  of  the  balance  of  power  in  the  East 
of  Europe  was  that  the  influence  of  Russia  should 


APPENDIX.  369 

not  be  allowed  to  increase,  nor  that  of  Turkey  to  de- 
cline. Wellington  called  tlie  confirmation  of  Greek 
independence  by  the  victory  at  Navarino  an  unto- 
ward event.  Daniel  Webster  and  Henry  Clay,  how- 
ever, —  whose  deaths  were  as  sincerely  mourned  in 
Greece  as  in  America, — hailed  that  battle  as  the 
triumph  of  a  sister  people  in  a  struggle  which  the 
United  States  were  the  first  among  nations  to  en- 
courage officially. 

George  Canning  hoped,  and  Athens  has  not  ceased 
to  dream,  that  a  regenerated  Greece  might,  from 
•Constantinople,  regenerate  all  the  now  subject  Greek 
races  on  both  shores  of  the  ^gean.  Of  the  15,000,- 
000  of  the  population  of  European  Turkey,  less  than 
4,000,000  are  Ottomans  ;  the  rest  —  Slavonians, 
Greeks,  Wallachians,  Albanians  —  profess  the  Greek 
religion  or  speak  the  Greek  dialect.  Demosthenes, 
Miltiades,  Themistocles,  it  may  be  presumed,  would 
adopt  the  Hellenic  idea  if  in  Greece  to-day ;  but,  as 
a  late  American  ambassador  at  Athens  affirms,  these 
men  are  remembered  by  the  modern  Greek  as  if  they 
were  yesterday  in  the  Acropolis.  In  polyglot  Turkey 
there  are  peoples,  but  no  people.  To-day  it  is  calcu- 
lated that  counting  by  individuals,  the  Greeks  in  Eu- 
ropean Turkey  are  to  the  Turks  as  six  to  one ;  but, 
estimating  them  by  their  wealth,  they  are  as  thirty 
to  one.  In  view  of  these  facts,  few  statesmen  now 
think  Turkish  power  in  Europe  destined  to  endure  a 
century.  Already  Greek  merchants  lead  the  commer- 
cial affairs  of  Constantinople,  and  possess  the  carry- 
ing trade  of  Turkey  and  the  Levant.  In  Manchester, 
Liverpool,  and  London  it  is  proverbial  that,  as  mer- 

24 


370  APPENDIX. 

chants,  the  few  Greeks  are  even  more  brilliantly  suc- 
cessful than  Scotchmen.  Meanwhile,  rich  Greeks 
endow  schools,  libraries,  and  academies  of  art  at 
Athens.  They  long  to  give  this  city  intellectual 
primacy  on  the  iEgean.  The  Hellenic  spirit  burns 
abroad  from  Athens  upon  the  wide,  languid  East. 
Cornelius  Felton  affirms  that  he  conversed  on  Mars 
Hill  with  a  street  lad,  who,  in  twenty  minutes,  ex- 
cept the  word  cafe^  did  not  use  a  word  that  would 
not  have  been  good  Greek  in  the  days  of  Pericles. 
So  astonishing  has  been  the  success  of  efforts  to  im- 
prove the  modern  dialect,  that  Demosthenes'  Ian-* 
guage  now  flows  through  daily  life  at  the  foot  of  the 
Acropolis  so  little  adulterated  that  the  students  of 
the  university,  pronouncing  Greek  as  we  do  not,  give 
popular  exhibitions  of  the  tragedies  of  Sophocles  and 
the  comedies  of  Aristophanes,  without  the  change  of 
a  syllable. 

VII. 

Walking  to  the  southeast  corner  of  the  Acropo- 
lis, I  looked  down  upon  the  great  Dionysi^  theatre, 
uncovered  in  1862  by  Hofbaurath  S track's  German 
shovels.  Some  of  the  marble  chairs,  a  few  of  the 
statues,  half  the  seats,  a  multitude  of  the  inscriptions, 
are  still  in  their  places.  On  one  of  the  white  thrones 
there  is  a  lion's  foot,  sculptured  perhaps  in  Hadri- 
an's time,  and  with  the  tip  of  the  claw  yet  savagely 
sharp.  Socrates  once  ironically  commended  Aga- 
thon,  a  poet,  for  having  exhibited  his  wisdom  in  this 
theatre,  or  at  least  at  this  place,  before  30,000  spec- 
tators. Some  20,000  or  30,000  people  were  accus- 
tomed to  assemble  at  dawn  here,  in  a  semicircle  cut 


APPENDIX.  371 

in  the  slope  of  the  Acropolis,  and  to  listen  to  tragedies 
the  voice  of  which,  even  now,  as  we  read  them,  is  to 
the  ear  of  thought  a  majestic  philosophical  or  theo- 
logical anthem,  ^schylus  and  Sophocles  and  Eu- 
ripides so  taught  ethics  and  religion  that  the  stage  in 
the  ancient  Athenian  democracy  must  be  compared 
to  the  pulpit  in  modern  times.  Never  was  it  the 
frivolous  and  sometimes  filthy  thiug  which  is  to-day 
called  a  theatre.  Beneath  the  shadow  of  the  Par- 
thenon and  of  Minerva  herself,  the  free  people  sat 
down,  as  ^schylus  says,  "  under  the  wings  of  gods." 
Along  the  beach  at  Phalerus,  where  Demosthenes 
declaimed  to  the  waves,  and  beneath  the  sharp  hills 
of  ^gina  and  Salamis,  the  blue  sea  palpitated  be- 
fore the  spectators.  The  chief  part  of  the  Ilissus 
plain.  Mount  Hymettns,  the  ancient  Agora  and 
Pnyx,  and  numberless  temples  were  in  view.  Above 
the  unroofed  amphitheatre  hung  the  infinite  depth 
of  the  mysteriously  soft  and  bright  sky  of  Greece. 
Subtle  allusions  to  this  outlook,  abounding  in  Euri- 
pides, jiEschylus,  and  Sophocles,  prove  curiously  in 
detail  that  here  Greek  poetry,  in  the  early  spring 
mornings,  found  earth,  sea,  sky,  and  historic  monu- 
ments a  most  organizing  inspiration,  and  fit  to  match 
an  audience  comj^osed  of  all  that  was  then  the  most 
brilliant  in  the  world. 

vm. 

Only  one  mile  from  the  Acropolis,  as,  returning 
slowly  to  the  Parthenon,  I  looked  outward  over  the 
Cephissus  plain,  gleamed  in  the  moonlight  the  mar- 
ble shaft  above  Ottfried  Miiller's  grave,  on  the  hill 


372  APPENDIX. 

Colonus.  A  rifle  shot  to  the  left  of  this  rustled  the 
olive  groves  and  vinej^ards  on  the  spot  supposed  to 
have  been  occupied  by  Plato's  Academy.  There 
flowed  the  Cephissus,  giving  fatness  to  its  else  sterile 
plain  as  the  Nile  to  Egypt,  and  fatness  almost  as  if 
of  Egypt,  lading  the  thick  boughs  of  pomegranate, 
fig,  and  olive,  as  they  bend  thirstily  over  the  narrow- 
stream.  When  I  walked  on  its  banks,  pomegranate 
blossoms  filled  their  redness  with  the  sunbeams  until 
they  seemed  themselves  luminous.  Olives  threw  the 
silver  edges  of  their  foliage  into  the  breast  of  the 
Salamis  wind.  Young  figs,  cherries,  quinces,  apricots, 
lay  cool  under  the  thick  green  of  the  boughs,  that 
drew  from  the  j^ellow  banks  the  sap  of  ripeness. 
Plato's  farm  lay  not  far  away.  The  gardens  were 
ridged  everywhere  for  tlie  irrigating  streams,  which, 
nearer  the  sea,  almost  exhaust  the  water  of  the  river. 
Not  far  from  Plato's  Academy  I  found  the  bed  of 
the  streaju,  in  June,  seven  feet  below  the  top  of  the 
bank  and  the  whole  pebbl}^  and  sandy  channel  twenty- 
five  feet  wide.  There  were  about  nine  feet  breadth 
by  six  inches  depth  of  clear  water,  but  it  was  scat- 
tered waywardly  here  and  there  in  its  wide  channel 
by  its  considerably  strong  current,  and  I  walked 
easily  across  the  stream  where  the  vegetation  was 
heaviest. 

Plato's  Academy  v/as  a  garden  of  walks  and  col- 
onnades and  marble  lecture-rooms  open  to  the  sky, 
in  a  sea  of  gardens.  He  was  attracted  hither  not 
only  by  the  beauty  of  the  place,  but  by  the  crowd  of 
pupils  that  was  here  before  his  time.  Tlie  critics 
and  ancient  authors  make  the  identity  of  the  spot 


APPENDIX.  373 

with  that  of  Plato's  school  very  clear  ;  the  place  is 
yet  called  Academy  ;  I  found  five  intelligent  country 
people  on  the  plain  who,  separately  and  from  differ- 
ent spots,  pointed  it  out  to  me  by  that  name.  As  I 
entered  these  Plato  grounds,  I  found  myself  facing 
an  embowered,  large,  stucco  garden-house  and  look- 
ing down  a  covered  arcade  150  feet  in  length,  its  top 
laden  with  heavy  grape  clusters.  Here  were  pome- 
granates, oranges,  lemons,  cacti,  the  pepper -tree, 
peaches,  apricots ;  the  red  oleander  shot  up  to  an 
enormous  size ;  even  the  proverbial  darkness  of  the 
foliage  of  the  cypress  acquired  an  additional  vigor 
and  gloss  of  duskiness.  There  are  no  ruins  left  of  the 
Academy,  unless  four  round  pillars,  about  ten  inches 
in  diameter,  of  unfluted,  rough  gray  stone,  projecting 
from  a  garden  bed  to  a  height  of  some  four  feet,  and 
without  capitals,  are  to  be  taken  as  such.  A  few  sad 
pieces  of  broken  sculpture,  some  of  it  delicately  chis- 
elled and  evidently  very  ancient,  have  been  built  into 
the  wall  of  a  cistern  near  the  garden-house  :  a  tiger's 
head  and  a  human  figure  with  a  harp  are  the  best  of 
these  fragments,  which  very  possibly  may  have  been 
a  part  of  the  ornaments  of  the  splendid  walks  ex- 
isting here  in  Plato's  day.  Bird  songs  filled  the 
fragrant  air ;  but  the  spiritual  posture  of  listen- 
ing, loitering  ease  was  impossible  without  sacrilege. 
When  the  voices  of  pupils  and  teachers  were  heard 
here,  and  the  intellectual  atmosphere  flashed  those 
lightnings  which  have  illuminated  now  twenty  cen- 
turies, this  was  not  a  place  to  loiter  in ;  but  rather 
one  where  the  sleep  of  the  brain  should  have  been 
like  that  of  a  top,  the  rest  of  infinite  motion.  Plato's 
brain  plainly  had  no  other  rest  than  that. 


374  APPENDIX. 

Plato's  philosophy,  like  his  own  nature,  solves 
many  contradictions  by  its  largeness,  and  leaves 
many  unsolved  because  its  largeness  was  not  whole- 
ness. If  Aristotle  lacks  Plato's  height  of  soul,  Plato 
lacks  Aristotle's  realistic  tendency.  If  Plato  had 
too  much  wing  and  too  little  force  in  the  clasping 
and  tearing  talons,  Aristotle  had  too  little  force  in 
the  wings,  although  none  too  much  in  the  talons. 
Socrates,  who  invented  Definition  and  Ethics,  the 
former  as  an  instrument  in  the  latter,  was  a  more 
massive  and  more  nearly  whole  nature  than  either 
of  the  two,  in  spite  of  traces  of  ancouthness.  Al- 
though inferior  to  each  in  many  points  of  culture,  his 
rough  growth,  the  core  of  which  is  olive  wood  of  as 
fine  a  grain  as  is  to  be  found  in  Plato  or  Aristotle, 
is  denser  than  theirs,  and  outweighs  either  of  them 
bulk  for  bulk.  Socrates  is  the  sap  of  both  Plato  and 
Aristotle,  so  tliat  he  lives  yet  in  the  spiritual  boughs 
of  this  Academy,  whicli  have  spread  so  widely  and 
rustled  now  so  long  that  it  may  perhaps  be  said  the 
branches  will  have  no  heavier  storms  to  ride  through 
than  they  have  already  met  without  breaking.  This 
is  the  most  moving  thought  at  the  Academy  and  at 
the  Lyceum,  —  Academy,  Lyceum,  very  modern 
words  !  —  that  while  a  thousand  other  philosophies 
have  perished,  that  of  Plato  or  Aristotle  had  such 
worth  that  after  twenty  centuries  it  seems  likely 
never  to  be  forgotten,  except  in  some  retrogression 
of  the  culture  of  the  race.  Aristotle  and  Plato,  and 
not  the  mythological  shoots  which  Xerxes  burnt  on 
the  Acropolis,  were  the  true  sacred  olives  of  Athens ; 
and  the  world  has  filled  its  plains  with  slips  and 


APPENDIX.  375 

grafts  taken  from  tlieir  boughs ;  and  yet  that  fruit 
is  best  which  is  not  wholly  Plato's,  nor  wholly  Aris- 
totle's, but  born  of  the  sap  of  both  flowing  together 
in  scions  grafted  into  a  certain  Vine,  older  than  they 
and  younger,  and  which  has  its  roots  —  not  in  At- 
tica, but  in  the  world  to  which  all  men  haste ! 

IX. 

It  was  impossible,  in  looking  off  from  the  Acrop- 
olis as  midnight  drew  near,  not  to  dwell  long  on 
the  Pnyx  and  the  Bema,  on  the  northwest  slope  of 
the  Museum  Hill,  over  against  the  Parthenon  to  the 
southwest.  The  famous  semicircle,  where  govern- 
ments of  the  people,  for  the  people,  by  the  people, 
through  public  speech,  began,  slopes  from  the  Bema 
until  the  lower  side  of  the  field  is  eighteen  or  twenty 
feet  less  elevated  than  the  base  of  the  speaker's  plat- 
form, and  yet  its  corners  to  the  right  and  left  of  the 
speaker  are  ten  or  twelve  feet  higher  than  that  base. 
The  wall  buttressing  the  lower  part  of  the  field  is 
of  Cyclopean,  roughly  bevelled,  polygonal  stones.  I 
measured  in  it  blocks  eight  and  twelve  feet  long  by 
six  and  seven  wide  and  four  and  five  thick.  The 
structure  at  one  point  is  yet  sixteen  feet  high,  and  if 
it  was  ever  high  enough  to  make  the  ground  above 
it  level,  must  have  risen  to  an  elevation  of  thirty- 
five  or  forty  feet.  The  upper  edge  of  the  field  is  cut 
away,  leaving  a  face  of  stone  in  places  sixteen  feet 
high,  and  from  this  at  the  centre  of  the  semicircle 
projects  the  rock  of  the  Bema,  continuous  with  the 
scarped  ledge.  This  majestic  speaker's  platform 
rose  nine  feet  above  the  field  in  which  the  audience 


376  APPENDIX. 

sat  or  stood,  and  was  eleven  feet  wide  from  side  to 
side,  and  seven  feet  deep  from  front  to  back.  A  mi- 
nor, lower  and  broader  platform  was  in  front  of  it, 
and  nine  steps  ascended  it  on  the  left  and  on  the 
right. 

I  gazed  alone  from  the  Acropolis  on  this  gray, 
open,  solitary  pasture  as  it  gleamed  under  the  moon ; 
the  audiences  of  6,000  were  not  wholly  unseen  in  the 
air  ;  Pericles,  ^schines  moved  among  the  ghosts  ; 
and  from  the  Bema  northward  looked  Demosthenes, 
his  eyes  fastened  on  Philip  of  Macedon. 

Whoever  would  appreciate  Athenian  oratory  must 
keep  in  the  foreground  of  his  thoughts  the  immense 
contrast  between  the  opportunities  of  ancient  and 
modern  public  address. 

In  Demosthenes'  day  there  were  no  newspapers. 
The  oration  in  Greece  and  Rome  occupied  the  place 
of  the  modern  editorial,  and,  to  a  great  degree,  of  the 
telegraphic  dispatch.  Think  of  the  occasion  when 
Cicero  appeared  in  the  Forum  to  announce  in  a  speech 
that  Catiline  had  left  the  city.  How  vastly  would 
the  circumstances  have  been  altered  if  newspapers 
had  that  morning  previously  appeared  with  the  in- 
telligence and  appropriate  leading  articles.  The  Ro- 
man Forum  and  the  Greek  Bema  were  without  the 
rival  of  the  public  press. 

Audiences  in  the  Pnyx  commonly  numbered  from 
5,000  to  7,000.  In  cases  of  highest  moment,  no  law 
could  be  passed  unless  6,000  votes  in  its  favor  were 
deposited  in  the  urns.  Citizens  were  dissuaded  by 
the  famous  vermilion  colored  cord  from  absence  from 
the  assemblies.     That  Athenian  custom  of  sweeping 


APPENDIX.  ST7 

the  Agora  with  a  rope  chalked  with  red,  and  fining  all 
who  received  a  mark  and  were  careless  of  their  polit- 
ical duties,  is  to  be  imitated  yet  by  other  methods 
in  republican  governments,  if  these  latter  are  to  en- 
dure. The  chief  danger  of  good  men  in  a  republic  is 
their  tendency  to  abstain  from  political  painstaking 
except  in  cases  of  great  importance.  In  Athens  free- 
men had  practically  mstituted,  as  they  yet  will  in 
America,  compulsory  voting. 

The  structure  of  the  Athenian  law  courts  obliged 
every  accused  citizen  to  defend  himself  by  a  speech 
before  a  jury,  and  thus  made  oratory  indispensable  to 
success  in  any  prominent  career.  Others  besides  Soc- 
rates were  obliged  to  defend  themselves  by  a  speech 
before  a  jury.  Grote  says  that  the  nature  of  the 
Athenian  courts  was  such  that  oratory  was  as  need- 
ful to  every  citizen  as  weapons  to  a  soldier  in  war. 

Hence  the  abundant  attention  to  rhetoric  and 
logic  in  the  ancient  Athenian  schools.  The  Athe- 
nian rhetorician  was  necessitated  by  the  Athenian 
law  court.  These  civil  habits  made  the  Athenians 
better  judges  of  excellence  in  public  speaking  than 
any  other  collective  people  has  ever  been,  or  now 
seems  likely  to  be.  The  standards  of  excellence  in 
public  oratorical  discussion  were  varied  until  speeches 
like  those  of  Demosthenes,  which  no  audience  in 
America,  except  the  Senate  or  Supreme  Court,  could 
follow  easily,  were  not  only  not  unappreciated  by 
the  mass  of  the  immense  audience  in  the  Pnyx,  but 
inexorably  demanded.  There  will  not  soon  come 
another  day  like  that. 

These  were  the  true  secrets  of  the  merit  of  Athe- 


378  APPENDIX. 

nian  oratory,  aside  from  the  native  traits  of  the  Greek 
mind.  Too  much  has  been  said  superficially  of  the 
objects  visible  from  the  Bema,  as  if  they  were  the 
principal  source  of  Athenian  eloquence.  I  can  give 
them  only  a  secondary  value  as  a  means  of  inspira- 
tion ;  and  yet  what  vigor  lay  in  even  this  subordinate 
incitement.  Salamis  and  the  sea  almost  within  view, 
the  Acropolis  and  Parthenon  on  the  lofty  right-hand 
outlook,  the  Agora  on  the  low  left-hand,  the  city  in 
front,  Marathon  beyond  Pentelicus,  the  Academy 
among  the  olive  groves  in  the  Cephissus  plain,  the 
sacred  road  to  Eleusis  gleaming  out  from  the  pass  of 
Daphne,  temples  to  the  supreme  deities  on  all  the 
hills;  Cytherus,  Parnes,  Pentelicus,  and  Hymettus 
looking  down  on  the  orator ;  tlie  burial  field  of  all 
who  fell  in  Athenian  wars,  except  the  dead  of  Mar- 
athon, before  him  in  the  Athenian  plain ;  6,000  culti- 
vated freemen  within  the  reach  of  his  voice,  —  what 
solemnity  must  have  existed  in  Demosthenes'  appeals 
here  to  "  yonder  Propylea,  that  Parthenon,  those 
Porticos  and  Docks,"  "to  those  to  whom  Athens 
granted  burial  —  all  brave  men,"  and  ''  to  the  earth 
and  the  gods  !  " 

Undoubtedly  a  high  rank  among  the  incitements 
is  due  to  the  religious  spirit  which  opened  the  de- 
bates with  lustrations  and  prayers,  watched  the  clouds 
during  the  assemblies,  and,  on  important  occasions, 
dissolved  the  gatherings  if  lightning  or  thunder,  or 
even  rain,  seemed  to  indicate  that  the  unseen  world 
looked  angrily  on  the  people.  "  A  portent !  for  I 
felt  a  drop  of  rain,"  wrote  one  of  the  listeners  here. 
It  is  incalculable  what  political  influence  the  awe  of 


APPENDIX.  379 

the  unseen  had  in  all  Greek  history.  No  one  under- 
stands the  assemblies  to  which  Demosthenes  spoke, 
until  the  invisible  becomes  as  real  to  him  as  it  was 
to  an  Athenian. 

It  was  now  midnight  on  the  Acropolis,  and  the 
unseen  was  more  visible  in  the  hushed  solitude  than 
the  seen.  The  Parthenon  restored  itself;  the  mar- 
bles stolen  away  were  lifted  to  their  sublime  places. 
The  gates  of  the  Propylea,  once  more  on  their 
hinges,  were  flung  wide  open.  Up  the  sacred  ascent 
poured  with  faces  of  fire  flashing  armor,  music,  and 
incense,  the  shadowy  leagues  of  a  Panathenaic  pro- 
cession. On  Mars  Hill  stood  Paul,  on  the  Bema 
Demosthenes,  each  more  victorious,  historically,  than 
ever  was  Minerva  of  the  shield  and  spear,  and  the 
eyes  of  both  now  fastened  on  Europe  and  America 
beyond  the  West.  Aristotle  looked  on  the  Ilissus 
fretting  the  rocky  grounds  of  the  Lyceum  ;  on  the 
telescopic  tube  opened  in  the  tireless  eye  of  the  ob- 
servatory ;  and  on  the  University  in  the  sleeping  mod- 
ern city.  Plato,  in  the  night,  hovered  above  the 
olives  of  the  Academy,  and  with  extended  hand 
blessed  the  church  spires  beneath  the  moon.  Among 
the  pillars  of  the  Parthenon,  and  whiter  than  they, 
moved  and  whispered  Phidias,  Pericles,  ^schylus, 
Sophocles,  Euripides,  and  multitudinous  forms  un- 
known. Above  the  Salamis  Strait,  a  transfigured 
cloud  of  souls  glanced  upon  a  new  earth.  On  the 
blue  sea  flashed  swift  Phoenician  sails.  To  and  fro 
over  the  rock-cuttings  of  the  Cecropian  and  Cranaan 
city  moved  noiseless  men  from  Ionia,  Mythia,  Caria, 
and  Phrygia.     From  the  unseen  Marathon  came  the 


380  APPENDIX. 

sounds  tlie  Greeks  heard  there  at  midnight,  and 
glided  softly  a  wind  from  Troy.  Socrates  seemed  to 
step  colossal  through  the  night  beneath  the  stars,  and 
wherever  his  feet  touched  Athens,  the  rock  shook 
and  the  earth  flamed. 

Greece  was  intended  to  do  what  it  has  done.  What 
God  meant  to  accomplish  in  the  world  by  the  Greeks 
is  to  be  known  by  what  He  has  accomplished.  This 
race  was  sent  to  teach  Philosophy,  Eloquence,  and 
Art ;  we  know  that  this  was  its  mission,  because  this 
has  been  its  history.  What  Providence  does,  it  from 
the  first  intends.  When  as  yet  Rome  was  not,  it 
was  therefore  certain  that  Greece  would  teach  Rome. 
When  the  majestic  precipices  rose  at  Delphi,  it  was 
already  sure  that  the  Castalian  spring  at  their  base 
would  flow  into  all  the  earth,  and  cool  the  thirsting 
lips  of  culture  through  twenty  centuries.  When  the 
blocks  of  the  Parthenon  were  hewn  from  Mt.  Pentel- 
icus,  it  had  been  immemoriably  fixed  in  the  order  of 
the  world  that  this  temple  should  be  visible  to  edu- 
cated thought  to  the  last  ages  and  from  the  remotest 
lands.  What  Greece  has  done  for  the  latest  born  of 
time  in  Europe  and  America  through  Socrates,  Phi- 
dias, Pericles,  Euripides,  Demosthenes,  Plato,  and 
Aristotle,  is  what  these  men,  advancing  as  a  plan 
from  the  first,  arriving  as  facts  and  now  advancing 
as  memories,  were  from  the  first  intended  to  do. 
"  The  plan  of  Jove  was  being  accomplished,"  sings 
Homer,  in  the  sublimest  line  of  the  Iliad.  But  we 
now  see  in  that  plan  a  score  of  centuries  which  were 
invisible  to  Homer,  although  already  prearranged  in 
]iis  day ;  and  the  end  is  not  yet.     Greek  culture  is 


APPENDIX.  381 

tlie  left  arm  of  God  visibly  let  down  into  liist@iy, 
as  Christian  culture  is  the  riglit  arm.  As  once  on 
Lebanon  at  noon  listening  to  Jewish  history,  so  in 
the  Parthenon  at  midnight  listening  to  Grecian  his- 
tory, I  heard  but  one  voice,  God  !  God  I  God !  who 
was,  who  is,  and  who  is  to  come ! 

XI. 

Two  of  the  delicately  carved,  marble,  sacred 
chairs  stand  yet  in  the  Cella  of  the  Parthenon  ;  and 
when  the  midnight  watch  had  passed,  I  lay  down 
before  one  of  them  on  the  marble  floor.  An  old  sol- 
dier from  the  guard-house  at  the  gates  of  the  Acrop- 
olis found  me:  "E  freddo,"  he  said  kindly,  with  his 
hand  on  the  stone.  "  Va  bene,"  I  replied,  and  pre- 
pared myself  to  sleep  sitting  in  the  chair.  But  he 
brought  me  a  strong,  thick  blanket,  and  went  away 
with  payment.  I  lay  down  at  the  centre  of  the  Cella 
before  the  chair  and  slept  by  snatches.  Now  and 
then  I  was  wide  awake,  and  each  time  the  scene  was 
changed. 

XII. 

When  the  morning -star  began  to  pale,  the  city 
was  stiller  than  at  midnight.  Between  Hymettus 
and  Pentelicus  a  wonderful  sky,  all  soul  and  not 
sky,  showed  the  earliest  golden  tint  of  day.  A  bee 
passed,  as  if  on  his  way  to  Hymettus  or  the  Ilissus.  I 
ascended  the  winding  stairs  and  sat  at  the  very  top 
of  the  west  point  of  the  Parthenon,  above  the  col- 
umns, at  the  corner  toward  the  Bema.  The  inde- 
scribable depth  of  soul  in  the  Eastern  sky,  and  in  the 
colors  of  a  crystallme  fineness  of  texture,  that  I  never 


382  APPENDIX. 

saw  except  in  Greece,  deepened  as  a  liglit  sea-breeze 
began  to  move  toward  the  sun.  A  nearly  impercep- 
tible mist  trailed  along  the  east  slope  of  Parnes  ;  a 
delicate  level  cloud  hung  below  the  top  of  Penteli- 
cus;  about  Cytherus  there  was  rolling  vapor,  but 
elsewhere  none.  The  fair,  scarless  city  began  to  roll 
its  wheels.  A  kestrel  above  the  east  end  of  the 
Acropolis  balanced  in  the  morning  light.  A  raven 
flew  out  toward  the  sea.  The  solitary  mists  took 
scarlet  irradiation.  The  moon  grew  pale  above 
^gina.  A  kestrel  screamed  in  the  Parthenon. 
Pentelicus  threw  the  sharp,  dark  blue  outline  of 
its  grace  against  a  silver  and  golden  sky.  A  light 
breeze  from  the  Salamis  and  the  Cephissus  olives  had 
in  it  indescribable  freshness.  This  was  the  hour 
when  assemblies  gathered  at  the  Pnyx ;  and  now  on 
its  slope  thfe  ghosts  did  not  disperse  at  the  dawn. 
Cytherus,  Parnes,  Pentelicus,  Hymettus,  the  pass  of 
Daphne,  the  sacred  road  to  Eleusis,  were  full  of 
hosts  which  did  not  flee,  as,  flooding  them  all,  came 
forth  the  same  sun  which  Homer  saw.  The  eyes  that 
had  looked  on  Philip  of  Macedon  continued  to  look 
on  America.  With  the  westering  rays,  however,  and 
caught  up  into  the  advancing  beams,  the  invisible 
hosts  moved  forward ;  and  the  gleaming  inner  light 
of  historic  souls,  authors  of  the  world's  intellectual 
culture,  began,  with  the  hours  of  awakened  human 
memory,  their  daily  circuit  of  the  earth. 


BOSTON   MONDAY  LECTURES. 

By  JOSEPH   COOK. 


The  Boston  Monday  Lectures  are  now  included  in  the  following 
ten  works:  — 

Vol.  1.  —  Biology,  with  Preludes  on  Current  Events.    (17th  edition.) 

Vol.  2.— TRAJsrscE?a)ENTALiSM,  with  Preludes  on  Current  Events. 
(6th   edition.) 

Vol.  3.  —  Orthodoxy,  with  Preludes  on  Current  Events.  (5th  edi- 
tion.) 

Vol.  4.  —  Conscience,  with  Preludes  on  Current  Events. 

Vol.  5.  — Heredity,  with  Preludes  on  Current  Events. 

Vol.6. — Marriage,  with  Preludes  on  Current  Events. 

Vol.  7.  —  Labor,  with  Preludes  on  Current  Events. 

Vol.  8.  —  Socialism,  with  Preludes  on  Current  Events. 

Vol.  9.  —  Occident,  with  Preludes  on  Current  Events.     (A  new  volume.) 

Vol.10.  —  Orient,  with  Preludes  on  Current  Events.     (In  Press.) 


'  Price  ofeachvohime,  $1.50.    For  sale  by  all  Booksellers.    Sent, 
postpaid,  on  receipt  of  price  by  the  Publishers, 

HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  &  CO.,  Boston. 


/.     AMERICAN  OPINIONS. 


TJie  Biblioiheca  Sacra  for  January,  1880. 

The  Boston  Monday  Lectureship  is  now  in  its  fifth  year.  One 
hundred  and  thirty-five  lectures  on  abstruse  and  difficult  topics 
have  been  delivered  to  noon  audiences  of  extraordinary  size,  and 
containing  sometimes  two  hundred  ministers,  with  large  numbers 
of  teachers  and  other  educated  men.  Each  lecture  has  been  pre- 
ceded by  a  short  address,  called  a  Prelude  on  Current  Events,  and 
discussing  some  topic  of  urgent  political  or  religious  importance, 
like  civil  service  reform,  temperance,  fraud  in  elections,  Mormonism, 
the  Chinese  question,  the  Bible  in  schools,  the  Indian  question,  or 
the  negro  exodus.  In  revising  the  stenographic  reports,  both  the 
lecture  and  the  prelude  are  usually  somewhat  expanded  by  their 
author,  so  that  a  prelude  in  print  is  often  more  than  thirty  minutes 
in  length.  The  lecturer  has  thus  treated  two  important  topics  on 
each  occasion;  and  the  contrast  of  the  practical  matter  of  the  prel- 
ude with  the  more  speculative  and  scientific  substance  of  the  lec- 
ture, has  assisted  in  fixing  public  attention  upon  both.  Mr.  Cook 
has  been  the  first  speaker  to  employ  preludes  in  this  contrast  with 
theological  and  metaphysical  lectures. 

Great  pains  have  been  taken  to  secure  the  fullest  information  for 
the  preludes  from  official  sources  at  Washington  and  elsewhere. 
The  committee  in  charge  of  the  Boston  Monday  Lectureship  em- 
braces thirty-six  members,  of  whom  twelve  are  an  Executive  Board, 
representing  different  evangelical  denominations  in  Boston,  and 
tw«nty-four  are  scattered  through  the  country  all  the  way  to  Call- 


BOSTON  MONDAY  LECTURES. 


fornia.  "Written  permission  to  add  their  names  to  tlie  committee 
has  been  given  l)y  such  men  as  President  McCosli  of  Princeton  Col- 
lege, Professor  Ilitclicoclv  of  New  York,  Dr.  Storrs  of  Brooklyn, 
Bishop  Huntington  of  Syracuse,  Prof essor  Mead  of  Oberlin  College, 
Professor  Curtiss  of  Chicago  Theological  Seminary,  Dr.  Post  of  St. 
Louis,  and  Drs.  Gibson  and  Stone  of  San  Francisco.  It  \\\\\  readily 
be  seen  that  consultation  from  time  to  time  by  letter  with  so  large 
and  distinguished  a  committee,  and  with  other  public  men  with 
whom  the  lecturer  forms  acquaintance  in  his  extensive  travel, 
together  with  the  opportunity  of  wide  personal  observation,  makes 
the  preludes  an  important  source  of  suggestions  as  to  current  reform, 
and  a  most  useful  means  of  discussing  popular  evils  as  they  arise. 
The  independence  of  the  platform  adds  to  the  effect  of  its  treatment 
of  living  issues.  It  is  noticeable,  that,  in  both  the  Scotch  and  Eng- 
lish republications  of  Mr.  Cook's  volumes,  the  preludes  are  included 
in  full.  It  is  believed  that  no  leading  articles  in  any  newspaper  in 
England  or  America  are  so  extensively  copied  by  the  press  as  the 
preludes  of  the  Boston  Monday  Lectureship.  Each  one  is  intended 
to  be  a  compact  prose  sonnet,  discussing  current  events  from  the 
religious  point  of  view. 

The  thirty  lectures  delivered  in  the  second  year  of  the  lectureship, 
which  was  founded  in  1875,  are  comprised  in  the  three  volumes 
entitled  "  Biology,"  "  Transcendentalism,"  and  "  Orthodoxy."  The 
results  of  the  thfrd  year  of  the  lectureship  are  embraced  in  the  vol- 
umes entitled  "  Conscience,"  "  Heredity,"  and  "  Marriage."  Those 
of  the  fourth  year  are  summarized  in  the  books  called  "  Labor  "  and 
"  Socialism,"  now  in  press.  It  is  understood  that  the  present  series 
of  lectures  will  make  two  more  volumes,  to  be  entitled  "  Culture  " 
and  "Miracles." 

During  the  third  year  of  the  lectureship,  Mr.  Cook  gave  six  lec- 
tures in  New  York  City,  besides  speaking  in  most  of  the  prominent 
cities  of  the  North-eastern  States.  In  the  season  of  1878  and  1879, 
he  conducted  a  Boston  Monday-noon  Lectureship  and  a  New  York 
Thursday-evening  Lectureship  at  the  same  time.  In  his  course  of 
the  preceding  year  in  New  York  City,  he  had  been  introduced  by 
presiding  oflicers  like  Professor  Hitchcock,  Dr.  William  Adams, 
Professor  Schaff,  and  William  CuUen  Bryant,  and  the  audiences 
were  extraordinarily  large.  On  the  closing  evening  of  his  second 
course  in  New  York,  some  two  hundred  people  were  turned  away, 
unable  to  find  standing-room,  and  the  money  for  their  tickets  was 
refunded.  In  the  spring  and  summer  succeeding  the  last  full  course 
cf  the  lectureship,  he  visited  California,  and  performed  a  service  at 
the  dedication  of  a  chapel  in  the  Yosemite  Valley.  He  studied  and 
discussed  Mormonism  in  Salt  Lake  City,  and  the  Chinese  question 
in  California. 

In  the  year  ending  July  4,  1878,  Mr.  Cook  delivered  one  hundred 
and  fifty  lectures;  sixty  in  the  East,  ten  of  them  in  New  York  City, 
and  sixty  in  the  West;  besides  thirty  new  lectures  in  Boston,  which 
were  published  in  that  city,  New  York,  and  London;  issued  three 
volumes,  one  of  which  is  now  in  its  sixteenth  and  another  in  its 
thirteenth  edition;  and  travelled,  on  his  lecture-trips,  ten  thousand 
five  hundred  miles. 

In  the  year  ending  July  4,  1879,  he  delivered  one  hundred  and 
sixty  lectures;  seventy-two  in  the  East,  twenty  of  them  in  Boston 
and  ten  in  New  York,  seventy  in  the  West,  five  in  Canada,  two  in 
Utah,  and  eleven  in  Calif orTiia,  of  which  five  were  in  San  Francisco. 


BOSTON  MONDAY  LECTURES. 


He  twice  crossed  the  continent  in  the  last  four  months  of  the  season, 
and  in  the  last  nine  months  has  travelled,  on  his  lecture-trips, 
twelve  thousand  five  hundred  miles.  In  the  former  of  these  seasons 
he  addressed  large  audiences  in  sixteen,  and  in  the  latter  in  seven- 
teen, college  towns. 

It  is  worth  noting  that  Mr.  Cook  has  no  church  nor  parish  work 
on  his  hands,  although  he  not  infrequently  speaks  in  a  church  on 
Sundays.  Living  opi^osite  the  Boston  Athengeum  Library,  and 
using  it  as  much  as  though  it  were  his  own,  the  lecturer  has  found 
time,  outside  of  all  his  other  work,  to  carry  through  the  press,  in 
three  years,  the  eij^ht  volumes  of  Monday  Lectures,  issued  by 
Houghton,  Osgood,  &  Co. 

Mr.  Cook  had  a  previous  preparation  of  at  least  ten  years'  study, 
at  home  and  abroad,  for  the  discussion  of  the  relations  of  Chris- 
tianity to  thft  Bcienoes. 

"  The  New  York  Independent  "  owns  the  copyright  of  tke  pre«ei*fr 
series  of  lecttissMi,  and  sells  the  right  of  re$>ublication  to  otfe»r  p«pep& 
There  are  now  published,  and  have  be«ii  for  the  last  two  years,  over 
one  hundred  thousand  newsj^aper  copies  of  the  Bostxjn  Monday 
Lectures  and  preludes  in  full,  and  over  three  hundred  thousand 
copies  of  the  preludes  and  parts  of  the  lectures.  The  Committee  of 
the  Boston  Monday  Lectureshij:*  reported  in  March  last,  that,  at  a 
moderate  estimate,  more  than  a  million  readers  in  the  United  States 
and  Great  Britain  are  reached  weekly. 

In  September,  1880,  IMr.  Cook  intends  to  suspend  his  American 
lectures  for  a  j^ear,  at  least,  and  to  seek  opportunity  for  rest  and 
study  in  England  and  Germany. 

President  James  McCosh,  Princeton  College,  in  the  Catholic  Presbyte- 
rian for  September,  1879. 
What  influence  I  may  have  had  on  Mr.  Cook,  I  do  not  know;  but 
I  am  pleased  to  notice  that  on  intuition  and  several  other  subjects, 
he  is  iDromulgating  to  thousands  the  same  views  I  had  been  thinking 
out  in  my  study,  and  j)ropounding  to  my  students,  in  Belfast  and 
in  Princeton.  From  scattered  notices,  I  gather  that  he  was  born  (in 
1838)  and  reared,  and  still  lives  in  his  leisure  days,  in  that  region  in 
which  the  loveliest  of  American  lakes,  Lake  Champlain  and  Lake 
George,  lie  embosomed  among  magnificent  mountains.  He  was 
trained  for  college  at  Phillips  Academy,  under  the  great  classical 
teacher.  Dr.  Taylor  ;  was  two  years  at  Yale  College,  and  two  years 
at  Harvard,  graduating  at  the  latter  in  18G5,  first  in  philosophy  and 
rhetoric  of  his  class.  He  then  joined  Andover  Theological  Semi- 
nary, went  through  the  regular  three-years'  course  there,  and  lin- 
gered a  year  longer  at  that  place,  pondering  deeply  the  relations  of 
science  and  religion,  which  continued  to  be  the  theme  of  his  thoughts 
and  his  study  for  the  next  ten  years.  At  this  stage  he  received 
much  impulse  from  Professor  Park,  who  requires  every  student  to 
reason  out  and  to  defend  his  opinions ;  and  many  sound  philosophic 
principles  from  Sir  William  Hamilton  and  other  less  eminent  men 
of  the  Scottish  school.  He  spoke  from  time  to  time  at  religious 
meetings,  and  was  for  one  year  the  pastor  of  a  Congregational 
church,  but  never  sought  a  settlement.  In  September,  1871,  he  went 
abroad,  and  studied  for  two  years,  under  special  directions  from 
Tholuck,  at  Halle,  Berlin,  and  Heidelberg  ;  and  received  a  mighty 
influence  from  Julius  Muller  of  Halle,  Dorner  of  Berlin,  Kimo 
Fischer  of  Heidelberg,  and  Hermann  Lotze  of  Gottingen.    He  tlien 


BOSTON  MONDAY  LECTURES. 


travelled  for  a  time  in  Italy,  Egypt,  Syria,  Greece,  Turkey,  S^'itzer- 
land,  France,  England,  and  Scotland.  Returning  to  the  United 
States  in  1873,  he  took  up  his  residence  in  Boston,  and  became  a 
lecturer  in  New  England  on  the  subject  to  which  his  studies  had 
been  so  long  directed,  the  relations  of  religion  and  science.  For  a 
time  he  lectured  at  Amherst  College;  and,  while  doing  so,  he  was 
invited  to  conduct  noon  meetings  in  Boston. 

Mr.  Cook  did  not  take  up  the  work  he  has  accomplished,  as  a 
trade,  or  by  accident,  or  from  impulse ;  but  for  years  he  had  been 
preparing  for  it,  and  prepared  for  it  by  an  overruling  guidance.  I 
regard  Joseph  Cook  as  a  Heaven-ordained  man.  He  comes  at  the 
lit  time;  that  is,  at  the  time  he  is  needed.  He  comes  forth  in  Bos- 
ton, which  is  undoubtedly  the  most  literary  city  in  America,  and 
one  of  the  great  literary  cities  of  the  world.  I  am  not  sure  that 
even  Edinburgh  can  match  it,  now  that  London  is  drawing  towards 
it  and  gathering  up  the  intellectual  youth  of  Scotland.  It  has  a 
character  of  its  own  in  several  respects.  I  have  here  to  speak  only 
of  its  religious  character.  Half  a  century  ago  its  Orthodoxy  had  sunk 
into  Unitarianism  —  a  re-action  against  a  formal  Puritanism  —  led  by 
Channing,  who  adorned  his  bald" system  by  his  high  i^ersonal  char- 
acter and  the  eloquence  of  his  style.  People  could  not  long  be  satis- 
fied by  a  negation,  and  Parkerism  followed  ;  and  a  convulsive  life 
was  thrown  into  the  skeleton  of  natural  religion  by  an  a  jyriori 
speculation,  derived  from  the  pretentious  philosophies  of  Germany, 
in  which  the  Absolute  took  the  place  of  God,  and  untested  intuition 
the  place  of  the  Bible.  The  movement  culminated  in  Ralph  Waldo 
Emerson,  a  feebler  but  a  more  lovable  Thomas  Carlyle,  —  the  one 
coming  out  of  a  decaying  Puritanism,  the  other  out  of  a  decaying 
Covenanterism.  But  those  who  would  mount  to  heaven  in  a  balloon 
have  sooner  or  later  to  come  down  to  earth.  The  young  men  of 
Harvard  College,  led  by  their  able  president,  have  more  taste  for 
the  new  phj^sical  science,  with  its  development^,  than  for  a  visionary 
metaphysics.  As  I  remarked  some  time  ago  in  a  literary  organ, 
Unitarianism  has  died,  and  is  laid  out  for  decent  burial.  Mean- 
while there  is  a  marked  revival  of  Evangelism,  and  the  Congrega- 
tional and  Episcopal  churches  have  as  much  thoughtfulness  and 
culture  as  the  Unitarians.  Harvard  now  cares  as  little  for  Unita- 
rianism as  it  does  for  Evangelism  —  simply  taking  care  that  Ortho- 
doxy does  not  rule  over  its  teaching.  But  the  question  arises.  What 
are  our  young  men  to  believe  in  these  days  when  Darwinism  and 
Spencerism  and  Evolutionism  are  taught  in  our  journals,  in  our 
schools,  and  in  our  colleges  ?  To  my  knowledge,  this  question  is  as 
anxiously  put  by  Unitarian  parents  of  the  old  school,  who  cling 
lirmly  to  the  great  truths  of  natural  religion,  and  to  the  Bible  as  a 
teacher  of  morality,  a;^  it  is  by  the  Orthodox. 

Such  was  the  state  of  thought  and  feeling,  of  belief  and  unbelief, 
of  apprehension  and  of  desire,  when  Joseph  Cook  came  to  Boston 
without  any  flourish  of  trumpets  preceding  him.  Numbers  were 
prepared  to  welcome  him  as  soon  as  they  knew  what  the  man  was, 
and  what  he  was  aiming  at.  Orthodox  ministers,  not  very  well  able 
themselves  to  wrestle  with  the  new  forms  of  infidelity,  rejoiced  in 
tlie  appearance  of  one  who  had  as  much  power  of  eloquence  as 
Parker,  and  vastly  more  acquaintance  with  philosophy  than  the 
mystic  Emerson,  and  who  seemed  to  know  what  truth  and  what 
error  there  are  in  these  doctrines  of  development  and  heredity.  The 
best  of  the  Uritarians,  not  knowing  whither  their  sons  were  drifti /ig 


BOSTON  MONDAY  LECTURES, 


were  pleased  to  find  one  who  could  keep  them  from  open  infidelity. 
Young  men,  tired  of  old  rationalism,  which  they  saw  to  be  very  irra- 
tional, delighted  to  listen  to  one  who  evidently  spoke  boldly  and 
sincerely,  and  could  talk  to  them  of  these  theories  about  evolution 
and  the  origin  of  species  and  the  nature  of  man.  The  consequence 
was,  his  audiences  increased  from  year  to  year.  He  first  lectured  in 
the  Meionaon  in  1875.  The  attendance  at  noon  on  Mondays  was  so 
large  that  his  meetings  had  to  be  transferred  to  Park-street  Church 
in  October,  187G  ;  and  finally,  in  1870-77,  in  1877-78  and  1879,  to  the 
enormous  Tremont  Temple,  which  is  often  crowded  to  excess.  In 
the  audience  there  were  at  times  two  hundred  ministers,  many 
teachers,  and  other  educated  persons.  His  lectures,  in  whole  or  in 
abstract,  appeared  in  leading  newspapers,  and  his  fame  spread  over 
all  America  ;  and,  continuing  his  Monday  addresses  in  Boston,  he 
was  invited,  on  the  other  days  of  the  week,  to  lecture  all  over  the 
country.  He  now  lectures  in  the  principal  cities  from  the  Atlantic 
to  the  Pacific,  always  drawing  a  large  and  approving  audience. 

Some  scientific  sciolists  have  thrown  out  doubts  as  to  the  accuracy 
of  his  knowledge,  but  have  not  been  able  to  detect  him  in  any  mis- 
statement of  fact.  He  lightens  and  thunders,  throwing  a  vivid  light 
on  a  topic  by  an  expression  or  comparison,  or  striking  a  presumptu- 
ous error  as  by  a  bolt  from  heaven.  He  is  not  afraid  to  discuss  the 
most  abstract,  scientific,  or  philosophic  themes  before  a  popular  au- 
dience; he  arrests  his  hearers  first  by  his  earnestness,  then  by  \*;he 
clearness  of  his  exposition,  and  fixes  the  whole  in  the  mind  by  the 
earnestness  of  his  moral  purpose. 

Rev.  Professor  A.  P.  Peabody,of  Harvard  University,  in  the 
Independent. 

Joseph  Cook  is  a  phenomenon  to  be  accounted  "for.  No  other 
American  orator  has  done  what  he  has  done,  or  anything  like  it; 
and,  prior  to  the  experiment,  no  voice  would  have  been  bold  enough 
to  predict  its  success. 

We  reviewed  Mr.  Cook's  "Lectures  on  Biology"  with  unquali- 
fied praise.  In  the  present  volume  we  find  tokens  of  the  same 
genius,  the  same  intensity  of  feeling,  the  same  lightning  flashes  of 
impassioned  eloquence,  the  same  \ise-like  hold  on  the  rapt  attention 
and  absorbing  interest  of  his  hearers  and  readers.  We  are  sure  that 
we  are  unbiased  by  the  change  of  subject;  for,  though  we  dissent 
from  some  of  the  dogmas  which  the  author  recognizes  in  passing, 
there  is  hardly  one  of  his  consecutive  trains  of  thought  in  which  we 
are  not  in  harmony  with  him,  or  one  of  his  skirmishes  in  which  our 
sympathies  are  not  wholly  on  his  side. 

Rev.  Dr.  Thomas  Hill,  Ex-President  of  Harvard  University,  in  the 
Christian  Rer/ister. 
These  lectures  are  crowded  so  full  of  knowledge,  of  thought,  of 
argument,  illumined  with  such  passages  of  eloquence  and  power, 
spiced  so  frequently  with  deep-cutting  though  good-natured  irony, 
that  I  could  make  no  abstract  from  them  without  utterly  mutilat- 
ing them. 

Professor  Francis  Boioen,  Harvard  University. 
I  do  not  know  of  any  work  on  conscience  in  which  the  true 
theory  of  ethics  is  so  clearly  and  forcibly  presented,  together  with 
the  logical  inferences  from  it  in  support  of  the  great  truths  of  re- 
ligion. 


BOSTON  MONDAY  LECTUBES. 


The  Princeton  Review. 

Mr.  Cook  has  already  become  famous;  and  these  lectures  are 
amonoj  the  chief  works  that  have,  and  we  may  say  justly,  made  him 
so.  Their  celebrity  is  due  partly  to  the  place  and  circumstances  of 
their  delivery,  but  still  more  to  their  inherent  power,  without  which 
no  adventitious  aids  could  have  lifted  them  into  the  deserved  promi- 
nence they  have  attained.  .  .  .  Mr.  Cook  is  a  great  master  of  analy- 
sis. .  .  .  The  lecture  on  the  Atonement  is  generally  just,  able,  aiid 
uuansweral)le.  .  .  .  We  think,  on  the  whole,  that  Mr.  Cook  shows 
singular  justness  of  view  in  his  manner  of  treating  the  most  diffi- 
cult and  perplexing  themes;  for  example,  God  in  natural  law,  and 
the  Trinity. 

Boston  Daily  Advertiser. 

At  high  noon  on  IMonday,  Tremont  Temple  was  packed  to  suffo- 
cation and  overflowing,  although  live  thousand  people  were  in  the 
Tabernacle  at  the  same  hour.  The  Temple  audience  consisted 
chiefly  of  men,  and  was  of  distinguished  quality,  containing  hun- 
dreds of  persons  well  known  in  the  learned  professions.  Wendell 
Phillips,  Edward  Everett  Hale,  Bronson  Alcott,  and  many  other 
citizens  of  eminence,  sat  on  the  platform.  No  better  proof  than  the 
character  of  the  audience  could  have  been  desired  to  show  that  Mr. 
Cook's  popularity  as  a  lecturer  is  not  confined  to  the  evangelical 
deuominations.    (Feb.  7.) 

It  is  not  often  that  Boston  people  honor  a  public  lecturer  so  much 
as  to  crowd  to  hear  him  at  the  noon-tide  of  a  week-day;  and,  when 
it  does  this  month  after  month,  the  fact  is  proof  positive  that  his 
subject  is  one  of  engrossing  interest.  Mr.  Cook,  perhaps  more  than 
any  gentleman  in  the  lecture-field  the  past  few  years,  has  been  so 
honored.    (Feb.  14.) 

The  Independent. 

We  know  of  no  man  that  is  doing  more  to-day  to  show  the  rea- 
sonableness of  Christianity,  and  the  unreasonableness  of  unbelief; 
nor  do  we  know  of  any  one  who  is  doing  it  with  such  admirable 
tolerance  yet  dramatic  intensity. 

Professor  Borden  P.  Boione,  of  Boston  University,  in  the  Sunday 
Afternoon. 
In  the  chapters  on  the  theories  of  life,  these  discussions  are,  in 
many  respects,  models  of  argiiment;  and  the  descriptions  of  tlie 
facts  under  discussion  are  often  unrivalled  for  both  scientific  exact- 
ness and  rhetorical  adequacy  of  language.  In  the  present  state  of 
the  debate  there  is  no  better  manual  of  the  argument  than  the  work 
in  hand.  The  emptiness  of  the  mechanical  explanation  of  life  was 
never  more  clearly  shown. 

The  Bibliotheca  Sacra. 
There  is  no  other  work  on  biology,  there  is  no  other  work  on  the- 
ology, with  which  this  volume  of  lectures  can  well  be  compared;  it 
is  a  book  that  no  biologist,  whether  an  originator  or  a  mere  middle- 
man in  science,  would  over  have  written.  Traversing  a  very  wide 
field,  cutting  right  across  the  territories  of  rival  specialists,  it  con- 
tains not  one  important  scientific  misstatement,  either  of  fact  or 
theory.  Not  only  the  propositions,  but  the  dates,  the  references,  the 
names,  and  the  histories  of  scientific  discoveries  ami  speculations, 
are  presented  as  they  are  found  in  the  sources  whence  they  are 
taken,  or,  at  least,  with  only  verbal  and  minor  changes. 


BOSTON  3I0NDAT  LECTURES. 


The  Eclectic  Magazine. 
It  may  be  said  unqualifiedly  that  the  pulpit  has  never  brought 
Buch  comprehensiveness  and  precision  of  knowledge,  combined  with 
such  logical  and  literary  skill,  to  the  discussion  of  the  questiona 
raised  by  the  supposed  tendency  of  biological  discovery. 

The  Advance,  Chicago. 
This  Boston  Lectureship  is  altogether  unique  in  the  recent  history 
of  iDopular  exposition  of  abstruse  themes.    One  has  to  go  back  to  the 
time  of  Peter  Abelard,  of  the  University  of  Paris,  for  a  laarallel  to  it. 


II,     FOREIGN  OPINIONS. 


Rev.  R.  Payne  Smith,  Dean  of  Canterbury. 

The  lectures  are  remarkably  eloquent,  vigorous,  and  powerful, 
and  no  one  could  read  them  without  great  benefit.  They  deal  with 
very  important  questions,  and  are  a  valuable  contribution  towards 
sohing  mauy  of  the  difliculties  which  at  this  time  trouble  many 
minds. 

Rev.  Dr.  Angus,  the  College,  Regent's  Park. 

These  lectures  discuss  some  of  the  most  vital  questions  of  the- 
ology, and  examine  the  views  or  writings  of  Emerson,  Theodore 
Parker,  and  others.  They  are  creating  a  great  sensation  in  Boston, 
where  they  have  been  delivered,  and  are  wonderful  specimens  of 
shrewd,  clear,  and  vigorous  thinking.  They  are  moreover,  lai'gely 
illustrative,  and  have  a  fine  vein  of  poetry  running  through  them. 
The  lectures  on  the  Trinity  are  capitally  written;  and,  though  we 
are  not  prei^ared  to  accept  all  Mr.  Cook's  statements,  the  lectures, 
as  a  whole,  are  admirable.  A  dozen  such  lectures  have  not  been 
published  for  many  a  day. 

Rev.  Alexander  Raleigh,  D.D.,  of  London. 
The  lectures  are  in  every  way  of  a  high  order.    They  are  pro- 
found and  yet  clear,  extremely  forcible  in  some  of  their  parts,  yet, 
I  think,  always  fair,  and  as  full  of  sympathy  with  w^hat  is  jiroperly 
and  purely  liuman  as  of  reverence  for  what  is  undoubtedly  divine. 

Rev.  John  Ker,  D.D.,of  Glasgoio. 
My  conviction  is,  that  they  are  specially  fitted  for  the  time,  and 
likely  above  all  to  be  useful  to  thoughtful  minds  engaged  in  seeking 
a  footing  amid  the  quicksands  of  doubt.  There  is  a  freshness,  a 
power,  and  a  felt  sincerity,  in  the  way  in  which  they  deal  with  the 
ingrossiug  questions  of  our  time,  and,  indeed,  of  all  time,  which 
should  commend  them  to  earnest  spirits  which  feel  that  thert!  nmst 
be  a  God  and  a  soul,  and  some  way  of  bringing  them  together,  and 
which  yet  have  got  confused  amid  the  negations  of  the  dogmatic 
Sv.'epticism  of  our  day.  I  had  the  pleasure  of  meeting  Mr.  Cook  four 
years  ago,  when  he  was  visiting  Europe  to  make  himself  acquainted 
with  different  forms  of  thouglit;  and  I  could  see  in  him  a  power  and 
resolution  which  foretold  the  mark  he  ia  now  making  ou  public 
opinion. 


BOSTON  MONDAY  LECTURES. 


Rev.  C.  H.  Spurgeon. 
These  are  very  wonderful  lectures.  AYe  bless  God  for  raising  up 
such  a  champion  for  his  truth  as  Joseph  Cook.  Few  could  hunt 
down  Theodore  Parker,  and  all  that  race  of  misbelievers,  as  Mr. 
Cook  has  done.  He  has  strong  convictions,  the  courage  of  his  con- 
victions, and  force  to  sui:)port  his  courage.  In  reasoning,  the  infidel 
{)arty  have  here  met  their  match.  We  know  of  no  other  man  one- 
lalf  so  well  qualified  for  the  peculiar  service  of  exploding  the  pre- 
tensions of  modern  science  as  this  great  preacher  in  whom  Boston  is 
rejoicing.  Some  men  shrink  from  this  spiritual  wild-boar  hunting; 
but  Mr.  Cook  is  as  happy  in  it  as  he  is  exisert.  May  his  arm  be 
strengthened  by  the  Lord  of  hosts  I 

London  Quarterly  Revieio. 
For  searching  philosophical  analysis,  for  keen  and  merciless  logic, 
for  dogmatic  assertion  of  eternal  truth  in  the  august  name  of  science 
nuch  as  fills  the  soul  to  its  foundations,  for  widely  diversified  and 
most  apt  illustrations  drawn  from  a  wide  field  of  reading  and  obser- 
vation, for  true  poetic  feeling,  for  a  pathos  without  any  mixture  of 
sentimentality,  for  candor,  for  moral  elevation,  and  for  noble  loyalty 
to  those  great  Christian  verities  which  the  author  affirms  and  vindi- 
cates, wonderful  lectures  stand  forth  alone  amidst  the  contemporary 
literature  of  the  class  to  which  they  belong. 

The  British  Quarterly  Review. 
Mr.  Cook  is  a  man  of  wide  reading,  tenacious  memory,  acute  dis- 
crimination, and  great  jiower  of  popular  exposition.  Nothing  deters 
him.  He  plunges  in  madias  res,  however  abstruse  the  s])eculation, 
and  his  vigor  and  fire  carryall  before  them.  He  has  intuitive  genius 
for  pricking  wind-bags,  and  for  reducing  over-sanguine  and  exag- 
gerated hypotheses  to  their  exact  value.  He  has  called  a  halt  in 
many  an  impetuous  march  of  science,  and  exposed  a  fundamental 
fallacy  in  many  a  triumphant  argument. 

The  London  Spectator. 
Vigorous  and  suggestive ;  interesting  from  the  glimpses  they  give 
of  the  present  phaVes  of  speculation  in  what  is  emphatically  the 
most  thoughtful  community  in  the  United  States. 

Professor  Schoberlein,  Gottingen  University,  Germany. 
I  admired  the  rhetorical  power  with  which,  before  a  large,  mixed 
audience,  the  speaker  knew  how  to  handle  the  difficult  topic  of 
l)iology,  and  to  cause  the  teachings  of  German  philosophers  and 
theologians  to  be  resi^ected. 

Professor  Ulrici,  University  of  Ilalle,  Germany. 
His  object  is  the  foundation  of  a  new  and  true  metaphysics,  rest- 
ing on  a  biological  basis;  that  is,  the  proof  of  the  truth  of  philo- 
80])hical  theism,  and  of  the  fundamental  ideas  of  Christianity. 
These  intentions  he  carries  out  with  a  full,  and  occasionally  with  a 
too  full,  application  of  his  eminent  oratorical  talent,  and  with  great 
Hagacity,  and  with  thorough  knowledge  of  the  leading  works  in 
pliysioioiiy  for  the  last  thirty  years. 


Princeton  TheolOQical  Seminary  Libg'fs 


1012  01245  1813 


Date  Due 

. . 

t 

^ 

PRINTED 

IN  U.  S.  A. 

